


The Obligatory 'Everyone Lives' AU

by alwayslily22, Des98



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dumbledore is being stupid af, Everyone lives, F/F, F/M, Gen, Harry learning that he is worthy of love, Harry was still abused by the Dursleys, Hey, I was like okay so we have enough WIPs we should work on those, James and Lily were in a coma, M/M, Please don't hate us, and also I hate the number thirty eight, but everyone else has, but then his parents wake up and FIX THAT SHIT, but then we were like, for having way too many things going, not dead, so we kinda had to, thanks for coming to my tag talk, what about the obligatory james and lily live AU, when you think about it, which hasn't changed from canon, which was how many stories were on my profile before I posted this, wolfstar is just a big pile of gay sappiness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-03 02:43:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15809712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwayslily22/pseuds/alwayslily22, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Des98/pseuds/Des98
Summary: Just what it says on the tin and in the tags.  Beta'd by Angela_97





	1. Prologue

October 31, 1981

James and Lily Potter were relaxing in the living room of their little cottage in Godric’s Hollow, comfortable and safe and sure that they would stay that way.  Lily held their sweet baby boy, rocking him back and forth as she sang lullabies into his ear. His dark skin, only a shade or two lighter than James’ own, contrasted sharply with her own, paler than ever after so many months inside.  Her green eyes looked down into his as they fluttered closed, his thumb in his mouth as he sucked on it sleepily. Crookshanks purred like a radiator against Lily’s calf, close to his favourite little human, whose tiny brown foot lightly brushed his fur as Lily rocked him.

“I know we said we were going to go back to the manor when we came out of hiding, for the elves’ sake if nothing else, but what do you think about spending the summers here?” she asked her husband as Harry dropped off to sleep.

“I think that as long as I’m with you two, I’d be happy anywhere,” the Pakistani man responded, kissing his wife softly on the lips before leaning down to place a kiss on his son’s head, with hair so like his own.

“Merlin, I love you so much,” Lily sighed, laughing at the idea of what her younger self would say to the idea of her being so sappy with James Potter, of all people.

“My love for you could move mountains, my sweet Lily flower,” he responded, and she rolled her eyes.

“You’re so dramatic,” she giggled softly, but before he could respond, the door was blasted off his hinges and they were looking into the narrowed red eyes of Lord Voldemort.  They looked at each other in a panic- their trust in Wormtail had been so complete that they’d left their wands upstairs, and now they had nothing with which to defend their son.

“Lily, take Harry and run!” James ordered, turning to his wife and ready to buy them as much time as he could for the price of his own life, wand or no wand.

“There will be no running tonight,” Voldemort hissed, stunning them both (and the cat) before they had a chance to move more than a few inches.  “No... there will be only death,” he sussurated, his voice nearly soft as he circled them, but with a quality that set their teeth on edge.

“Excccccept,” he continued, his tongue drawing out the syllables in what James and Lily thought was an  _ affront  _ to parseltongue, to the way their sweet lad hissed to the snakes in the garden and offered them little bits of chicken from his own pudgy fingers.  “Except for you, little flower,” he finished, running a cold hand along Lily’s cheek in a mockery of tenderness. “I’ve been asked to spare you, and although the idea rankled upon me at first, I must admit the thought of keeping you alive after I’ve killed your husband and son in front of you brings me great joy after all the trouble you’ve caused me.  Death would be a gift in comparison, and Lord Voldemort does not give gifts.”

“You’ll have to kill us both before you  _ ever  _ touch our son,” Lily spat, her mouth the only thing capable of moving.

“I’m afraid, little flower, that you do not have a choice,” Voldemort laughed, his voice cold and high as he pointed his wand at Harry’s forehead, as the commotion finally caused the little boy to come awake.  “I think I will kill the child first, so that dear James’ final moments are the most painful of all.”

They each struggled against the spells binding them in place, but to no avail- Lord Voldemort was at the height of his power, the loyalty of his many followers giving him great strength.  The young parents were terrified, not for themselves but for their child, but oddly enough the baby himself did not seem troubled. He was in mummy’s arms with daddy beside him, so the scary blue man did not seem quite a threat.

“Ba ba ba,” he gurgled, thumb still in his mouth. “Badadada!”

“Oh, quit your begging,” Voldemort snapped, and Harry looked at him curiously- he  _ begged  _ mummy for biscuits and daddy for ‘up up!’ (when James picked him up and tossed him high in the air before catching him again and spinning him around), but he did not beg this blue man for anything, as the blue man had nothing he would want.

“No beg,” Harry told him, seeming rather unimpressed.

“Oh, I think you  _ will  _ be,” Voldemort sneered, moving to push away a lock of Lily’s red hair that was covering part of Harry’s face so that he had better access for the killing curse.   _ That  _ was when Harry got mad- very,  _ very mad. _

_ “MY MAMA!”  _ he cried- this man was not like Pa’foot or Unca Moony or his best friend Neville- this man wasn’t nice, so he  _ wasn’t  _ to be allowed to share Harry’s mummy like they were.  He reached out with one chubby fist to rip the wand out of the man’s hand, throwing it across the room with a clatter.

This made Voldemort so mad that he forgot himself- how  _ dare  _ the insolent brat try to stop his plans!  He tried to cast the killing curse wandlessly, and there  _ was  _ a great flash of green light, but it bounced off of Harry (who had had accidental magic before for things like summoning the biscuit tin or making the pretty orange lights that they’d set up for Halloween  _ zoom  _ around the house, but was now full of enough righteous toddler anger to make a little shield around him and mummy and daddy, not that he knew he was doing it) and back towards the scary blue man, who scattered into dust with a sort of  _ poof  _ as magic exploded around the living room, and Harry felt a sharp pain in his forehead as the unstable energies rattled the house.  Mummy and Daddy dropped to the ground, still breathing but deeply, deeply asleep, and Harry crawled out from mummy’s arms, putting his hands on both of them in turn as sections of the roof fell everywhere but in the circle around them.

“Mama, dada,” he sang, poking them gently.  “Up! Up up  _ up!”  _ he prodded.  When they didn’t wake, his cries became more and more desperate, until suddenly Padfoot was there and he was holding Harry and he was crying.  They were about to leave to get help when Hagrid came, telling Padfoot to leave Harry with him, and although Padfoot didn’t want to, the big giant man promised Padfoot that he’d be okay and told him to go get the aurors while he went for Dumbledore.

Except Padfoot didn’t go to the aurors, and James and Lily still didn’t wake up, and that’s when everything  _ really  _ started going wrong.


	2. Chapter 1

It had been a  _ miserable  _ day for Harry Potter.  Of course, every day was a miserable day for Harry Potter, but today had taken the cake merely because it looked like it perhaps  _ wouldn’t  _ be.  It was Dudley’s birthday, and Harry had stood off to the side and watched hungrily as they ate the breakfast he had made, the breakfast he wasn’t allowed to touch.  He hadn’t eaten anything yesterday, either, and his back still stung from his punishment two days ago, which he’d received when he couldn’t get a gravy stain out of Dudley’s favourite t-shirt while doing the laundry.

“Vernon,” Petunia muttered, not looking at Harry.  “Perhaps we ought to let  _ him  _ eat as well- he’s going to Mrs. Figg’s today, after all, and if that nosy old bat hears his stomach growling, she could start spreading things around, things that would make us look bad…”

“Very well, Pet,” Vernon grunted, although he didn’t look happy about it.  He turned to Harry.

“Come here, boy!” he roared, shoving one fried egg and a single rasher of bacon onto Harry’s plate.  Harry stepped forward tentatively, and Vernon pushed him hard into the chair, forcing him to hold back a wince as the lashes on his back from the belt rubbed painfully.  He quickly tucked in, eating as quickly as he could, before the Dursleys could change their mind and decide to rip the food out from under his nose as they often had before, thinking it a splendid joke.  He was so focused on eating that he blocked out the sounds of Dudley’s tantrum, which wasn’t that hard, as Vernon had given him enough good knocks round the ears that it was often more work to try to hear things than to try  _ not  _ to hear them, and with a distraction as good as being allowed to eat a full breakfast, ignoring even Dudley’s monstrous wailing wasn’t too difficult.

Once Dudley  _ had  _ calmed down with the promise of more presents, the phone rang, although Harry’s sub-par ears didn’t register the sound until Aunt Petunia got up to answer it.  The conversation was short and curt, and the horse-faced woman came back looking very displeased.

“Mrs. Figgs can’t take him,” she grumbled tightly.  “She’s broken her leg.”

“Well, I suppose we’ve just wasted good food then,” Vernon responded, glaring at Harry as if it was his fault.  Harry thought that his uncle probably  _ did  _ think it was his fault; after all, he thought  _ everything  _ was Harry’s fault.  Harry had to disagree with him (silently, of course) about wasting good food though; the gnawing ache in his stomach was less than it had been in days, maybe even a week.  He was kind of upset that he couldn’t go to Mrs. Figg’s, though- yeah, she was a bit batty, but her cats were nice and Harry ate better there than anywhere else, and it sure beat getting locked in his cupboard, which was surely what was going to happen to him now.

“We’ve got bigger problems,” Petunia sniffed.  “We can’t just leave  _ him  _ in the house- he’ll bring it down while we’re gone.”  Harry thought that was a bit unfair: just because his cupboard door had somehow swung open the last time they’d left him home alone and he’d snuck out to get a bit to eat with the unfortunate timing of  _ right as they got home  _ (he cringed a bit at the memory of  _ that  _ punishment, and the new deadbolt on the cupboard that came after) didn’t mean he was going to destroy the place.

“I promise I won’t destroy the house,” he said timidly, earning him a cuff ‘round the ear from Vernon that knocked his glasses to the floor.  As he scrambled to pick them up, the man also swatted his sore back with the wooden serving spoon, and Harry had to bite his lip to keep from crying out.

“Don’t talk, boy!” his uncle roared, never using any other tone of voice with Harry.  Then he turned back to his wife.

“So, what do we do with him?” he asked his wife, and Petunia wrinkled her nose as if she was about to make some very unpleasant pronouncement.

“Well,” she sighed heavily, as if this was the worst thing that had ever happened to her.  “I suppose we’ll just have to take him with us.”

Twenty minutes later, he was in the car sandwiched between Dudley and his friend Piers Polkiss, and he couldn’t keep the smile off of his face even as they each took one of Harry’s scrawny arms, competing to see who could hit him the hardest.  Even when Petunia gave him one of her horrid pink cardigans and told him to use it to cover the bruises they’d given him when they got there, he couldn’t stop smiling. The joke was on her, honestly- even though it was a terrible, ugly piece of clothing, it was no uglier than the hand-me-downs from Dudley he was wearing, and it had the advantage of being lovely and warm in the chill April breezes.

He got to eat  _ two  _ ice creams that day- one when the lady at the cart asked him what he wanted before they could hustle him away and they ordered him a cheap lemon ice pop, and then almost the entirety of a knickerbocker glory when Dudley complained that his didn’t have enough ice cream on it and got to eat another one, and instead of throwing it away, Harry got to finish the first, because if there was one thing that the Dursleys disliked even more than Harry enjoying himself, it was not looking normal, and two boys eating while the third wasn’t allowed anything would draw strange looks and perhaps even a call to child services.  The Dursleys could  _ not  _ get a call from child services, because if certain things came up, they’d have no way to explain themselves.

Harry knew he would pay for it later, but right now he didn’t care as he wandered a few metres behind the Dursleys, looking at lions and tigers and a gorilla that sort of looked like Dudley if Dudley was far nicer than he was and not blonde.  Everything was going alright until the snake exhibit, where he had a nice conversation with a boa constrictor before the glass disappeared and it was blamed on him.

Hence the part where his day got miserable as they dropped Piers off before immediately starting in on him, yelling at him so loudly that Harry had no trouble at all understanding them before Vernon got the belt down.  It was unusual to have such a quick turn around- usually the wounds from one thrashing had at least scabbed over before he got another one- so Harry couldn’t bite back a scream as the belt cut into the still-fresh wounds on his back while making newer ones over older scars and what little unblemished skin he had left at this point, ten years later.

When they threw him in the cupboard and locked the door, Harry supposed he should be glad that they’d only taken food from him for three days instead of longer; he’d eaten a decent amount today, so the hunger at least shouldn’t be  _ too  _ bad.  But gratitude was very hard to muster when his back hurt and he was pretty sure his wrist was sprained at the very least from when Vernon had tossed him in the cupboard even harder than usual.  He didn’t want to cry, yet he couldn’t help the silent tears streaming down his face as the realisation hit that this was his life, that it would never get any better.

___________

James and Lily woke to stark white walls in St. Mungo’s as a flurry of healers descended on them, telling them they hadn’t expected them to  _ ever  _ wake up.  When they asked how long they  _ had  _ been asleep and how their son was doing, they received the astonishing news that they’d been in a coma for ten years and that their sweet little boy was supposedly the saviour of the wizarding world, the one who had freed them all from Voldemort.  They’d known, of course, that he was going to be a great wizard- his accidental magic at such a young age had been impressive- but that he’d faced down the darkest wizard of all time and not only lived but kept  _ them  _ alive as well was nearly more than they could process.

Even  _ more  _ frightening was the news that  _ Sirius  _ had been blamed for their deaths, and as soon as they were medically cleared (and almost before, if the nurses hadn’t held them down for the examination), they were rushing to the ministry on joints just a little stiffer than they’d expected (they’d aged ten years, after all, and that took a bit of getting used to) to demand his release.  When told that he’d killed Peter Pettigrew and thirteen muggles, they’d looked at the aurors in disbelief, asking if they’d used veritaserum at his trial. When they learned that he hadn’t  _ had  _ a trial, they’d held the Minister of Magic himself at wandpoint until a boat was sent to Azkaban to retrieve him immediately.

James and Lily were the type of very productive people who  _ got shit done,  _ so not three hours after they’d woken up, Sirius was freed with a thousand apologies and a compensation payment of one hundred thousand galleons, which paled in comparison to the Black fortune but was far from their greatest concern at that moment.

“All right,” they’d sighed, once Sirius had showered and eaten.  “Let’s go pick up Harry from the Longbottoms.” They could hardly wait to see their son again, and the only thing that had kept them from rushing off immediately was their worry about Sirius, sure that their son was safe and well-taken care of and thus could wait a few hours while they freed his godfather.

“Oh Merlin,” Sirius groaned, running a hand through his clean, freshly-cut hair.  “I forgot that you wouldn’t have heard…”

They were full of grief for the plight of Frank and Alice, of course, but far more worried about where Harry was, as nobody seemed to be able to tell them anything.  Finally, they looked at one another, sighing.

“Well,” Lily huffed, taking a deep breath.  “Let’s go see where Dumbledore put him.” They were irritated, of course, that the man had taken it upon himself to oversee Harry’s placement, but as they assumed that he’d gone to a good home, probably with Minerva, they were willing to put that aside for the moment, as anger would only make the process of getting their boy back take far longer than it needed to.

Dumbledore paled when they walked into his office, and while they have aged ten years without realising it while they were in a coma, he seemed to age  _ fifty  _ in the space of a second.

“James… Lily…” he gasped.  “We thought you’d never wake up.”

“Well, here we are,” James chirped with forced cheerfulness.  “You think you’d at least be happy to see your old head girl and boy, but you look like you’ve seen two ghosts instead…” They were beginning to get very worried.

“The thing is,” Lily began, keeping her voice neutral with some effort, “nobody seems to be able to tell us where you’ve placed Harry.”

“Oh, um, well…” Dumbledore gulped, and Sirius had to keep himself from hexing his old mentor right then- something bad was coming.  “The sacrifice you’d made for Harry would be able to keep him safe only if he had blood protection to maintain it…”

“What sacrifice?” Lily spat, her face quickly turning as red as her hair.  “There  _ was  _ no sacrifice- Voldemort  _ stunned us and tried to kill our baby while we were forced to watch, but he messed up!   _ **_NOW WHERE IN THE WORLD HAVE YOU PUT OUR SON?!”_ **

“I… I thought it would be best if he went… to your sister,” Dumbledore croaked, his voice nearly inaudible at the end.

**“YOU PUT** **_MY_ ** **CHILD WITH THAT BITCH?!”** Lily roared, a wind picking up around the office as it was fed by the energy of three furious wizards.   **“DESPITE KNOWING THAT THAT IS THE LAST PLACE WE WOULD HAVE** **_EVER_ ** **WANTED HIM TO GO, YOU THOUGHT TO PUT HIM THERE TO FIT IN WITH SOME GRAND PLAN OF YOURS?!”**

As much as they would have loved to spend the rest of the day hexing the piss out of Dumbledore, they had a child to rescue, so they left rather quickly, all though not before their fury had destroyed his office and knocked him unconscious, his face against his desk and a large bruise on his forehead.  They would have freed Fawkes from his cage, but he hadn’t been in it when they entered, which alone should have told them that Dumbledore had been straying further and further from a path of decent decisions.

“Let’s go,” James told his wife and brother, trying to hold the tears back.  It would do no good for Harry’s parents to come to him bawling their eyes out, not when he would need them to be strong for him.

What they found at Number Four, Privet Drive was worse than they could have ever imagined.  While Lily might have expected her sister to withhold love from her child, to treat Dudley far better and to expect Harry to get by on the bare necessities, she never in a million years would have expected even from her sister to find her baby boy in a cupboard, bloody and beaten and barely conscious, looking not nearly eleven but barely seven as he flinched back when touched, not even well enough to be cognizant of what was going on around him.

“Please don’t hit me again,” he slurred weakly.  “Not till tomorrow, at least…” he was  _ begging,  _ begging  _ his own parents  _ not to hit him, because in his fevered state he didn’t even realise who they were, didn’t realise that the person picking him up and holding him to his strong, gentle chest was none other than his father.

“Shhh, Prongslet,” he whispered, stroking Harry’s hair, so like his own except for the fact that it was matted with dried blood.  “Nobody’s ever going to hit you again; I promise.”

Lily turned to her sister, her eyes not their usual shade of emerald but killing-curse green.  “Even after all this time, I’d expected better from you,” she grit out, her voice tight. “And I swear to every god that’s ever been worshipped, if my son didn’t need medical attention  _ right this minute,  _ I’d show you the true meaning of pain.”

Petunia was terrified; she’d never seen her sister like this- even when she herself had been the meanest to Lily, her usual reaction was hurt mixed with anger, but  _ this…  _ this was pure rage, and she could tell that if she could have gotten away with it, Lily would have killed her right then and there.

“We have to do  _ something  _ to them,” Sirius growled, his hackles raised as they turned to the door.  “Even if it’s not everything they deserve yet.” He looked at Harry’s wounds sadly, at how deep and severe they were.  Then he looked back at Petunia. 

“It’s clear you’ve married a monster,” he spat at her.  “So now you get to live with one.” It was ironic that the first thing he did with his wand after getting out of Azkaban was something that would have been enough to get him arrested had anyone else been around to see it as he pointed the cherry-wood at Vernon Dursley, a flash going off as with a  _ pop  _ the man disappeared, to be replaced by a great, stinking troll, scratching his own head and looking about wildly before beginning to crush all the boring, floral-patterned furniture with his great fists.

“We need to get back to the manor,” James announced, still holding Harry close.  “But I don’t think he’s well enough to apparate…”

“Maybe not via wizard,” Lily said, “but going with an elf has always been far less unpleasant.”  Then she called Squeaky, the head elf of Potter manor, who was ecstatic to see them but put her glee aside as soon as she saw the state Harry was in, immediately taking them right into the living room of the old house, which was as clean and comfortable as ever.

“Sirius,” she ordered, taking charge, “call Poppy- have her floo here.  We’re going to get him into bed and do what we can.”

The dog animagus nodded tightly, all business as he reached for the pot of powder on the mantle, which had been kept well-stocked by the excellent Potter elves, ready for the day when, they’d hoped, their masters would come home to make the manor joyful again.

“I’ll get a warm flannel,” James told his wife after he’d set Harry carefully on the bed in his old room and she’d started categorising the full extent of her son’s wounds, using what rudimentary healer’s training she’d received before she’d joined the call to be an auror on the front lines.

“The scarring is extensive,” she lamented, once her husband had brought the wet cloth so that she could begin gently cleaning the wounds.  “He’ll have to deal with these reminders for the rest of his life.”

“Oh Lils,” James responded, choking on a sob as one finger gently stroked his son’s bruised cheeks.  “He was supposed to have the best life…”

“I know, James,” she whispered hoarsely back, tears in her eyes.  “I know…”

______

It was only after hours of having wounds cleaned and infections treated and bones broken and reset and placed in casts that Harry’s condition was stable as Poppy Pomfrey stepped back, wiping her brow on a handkerchief.

“I’ve put him in a magical coma for a month,” she told the parents, who flinched, and she softened understandingly.

“Don’t worry; he’s guaranteed to wake up in that time,” she promised them, her eyes intense.  “He just needs to be in a position where his body can rest and heal without being disturbed; I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t completely necessary.”

“We know, Poppy, and we’re grateful for your help,” Lily said, putting a hand on top of her old mentor’s.  “What about once he wakes up?” she asked quietly, not naive enough to believe that that would be all that’s necessary.

“I’ve got a potions list of corrective treatments to offset some of the damage of the malnutrition and abuse,” the healer explained briskly, allowing herself to sink into the blessed numbness of professional mode, where she didn’t have to think as much on how terribly the child she had delivered was suffering.  “He’ll need to take them for the foreseeable future. His right arm is also broken quite severely; I’ve completely immobilized it in the sling for now, but by the time he wakes up we should be able to switch to a simple cast. I’m sure you’re aware that the scarring is extensive, and I’m afraid nothing can be done about that.  What  _ can  _ be taken care of are his ears; he’s had quite a few untreated infections and some damage from being hit too hard in the head, and his glasses prescription is vastly out of date.  I’ve marked the necessary prescriptions down, so I can be back with those tomorrow when I come to check on him.”

“Thank you Poppy,” Lily told her.  “You are amazing.”

“Your son is the true hero here; the things that he’s survived are… well, with a spirit like his, I’m sure everything will be alright.”

“Should we wait a year before we start him in Hogwarts?” James asked.  This would have been the lead-up to his first year, but with the state of his health…

“That’s up to you, honestly,” Poppy sighed.  “It’s only April, so physically at least, he should be doing alright by September… he’ll still need careful looking-after, of course, and his health will be far from perfect for a long time, I’m afraid, but if you did decide to let him go, well, I could use my apprentice back…” she smiled slightly at Lily.

“I think that we need to let Harry be a part of that decision,” Lily replied.  “But if he  _ does  _ decide that he wants to go in September, then I’d feel a lot better if I was working at Hogwarts as well.”

“And I’d come along, of course,” James butt in.  “There’s no way I’m going to be without my wife and son ever again.”

“Good thing you won’t have to.” Lily smiled gently as she reached for her husband’s hand.  “Now, I think Sirius probably already plans to stay in his old room, so as soon as we find Moony and Harry wakes up, we’ll be a full family again.”


	3. Chapter 3

When Harry came to awareness again, he felt warm and comfortable, and he wondered if he was dead.  But no, that couldn’t be right, because Petunia said that freaks like him went to hell when they died.  As he forced his eyes open, he was quite surprised to see four faces that looked very familiar looking worriedly down at him.  In his peripheral vision (which he noticed was far better than usual) there was also a stern-looking lady wearing an apron, but he focused back on the people he felt like he should know.

The red-haired, light-skinned lady had eyes like his, and her chin kinda looked the same, and the man beside her looked almost exactly like Harry except for the fact that his eyes were hazel and his skin was a little darker.  Harry thought he must be dreaming, as there was nobody else these people could be except…

“Mum? Dad?” he croaked, and then one of the other men, who had perfect white skin and grey eyes and soft black hair down to his shoulders, was holding a glass of water to Harry’s lips.

They both burst into tears immediately.  “Yes, baby darling, it’s us,” the lady-  _ his mum-  _ said.  “We’re sorry it’s taken us so long to get back to you.”

“B-but I thought you died in a car crash,” Harry warbled, his lower lip quivering despite his best efforts to stop it.  “That’s what Aunt Petunia said.”

“Well, your Aunt Petunia is a…” Lily began before taking a deep breath.  “A number of words that I shall  _ not  _ be using around my son,” she finished, with great restraint.  “We never died, Bambi, we’ve just been in a coma for a very long time.”

“From the car accident?” Harry asked.  “Wait- am I dreaming?”

“No sweetie, you’re not dreaming,” James told him, wiping his hair off his forehead.  “And there was no car accident.”

Harry looked up at his parents in wonderment as they explained magic and Hogwarts and Lord Voldemort and told him in no uncertain terms that he was  _ not  _ a freak, and although it all seemed too wild to be real, Harry couldn’t help but believe him.  After all, wasn’t he in his current state because he’d accidentally set a boa loose on Dudley. 

And he supposed there was no doubt now, that  _ he’d  _ done it.  There’d been a funny feeling in his stomach first, the same funny feeling that had preceded all of the other strange things that had happened to him and some of his very worst punishments.  But right now he wasn’t thinking about those punishments. He was thinking about his parents, and the men they had called Padfoot and Moony that he felt quite sure now that he remembered at least a little bit, and he nearly hit himself in the face with a cast he hadn’t realised was on his wrist as he sat up and threw his arms around his parents and cried for the first time in years.

“Careful Prongslet,” his father told him softly, laughing through his own tears.  “You’re still in quite a state and need to take it easy as much as possible.”

Harry realised belatedly that as well as his arm wasn’t the only thing that was all wrapped up- his chest was covered in bandages as well, and the glasses on his face weren’t his usual ones.  He noticed as well that he had heard his parents and his godfathers perfectly, even though they weren’t shouting at him, and he felt something funny in his ears.

“Those are your hearing aids, pup,” Padfoot (whose real name was Sirius, his dad had told him) explained.  “Your ears weren’t great, so we had to get something to help out.”

“Aww, you didn’t have to do that,” Harry mumbled, looking embarrassed.  “I usually get on just fine.”

“Sweetheart, we  _ want  _ to do this for you,” his mum said.  “We want to do everything for you- we missed you so much, and we’re just so happy you’re back so we can take care of you.  Nothing you ever need is any trouble for us.”

“Oh…” Harry murmured, not knowing how else to respond to that.

“It’s okay if it takes some getting used to; we’ll be here for you,” his mother whispered gently, kissing his forehead where his scar was.  “Now, how about we try to eat some lunch and take your potions, hmm?”

“I can  _ eat?”  _ Harry asked, voice shaking as he looked up at them.

James felt his fists clench but knew he needed to keep the anger at Petunia and Vernon out of his voice for his son’s sake.

“You can eat anytime you want, Prongslet, and as much as you want,” he promised, pulling a lock of hair out of his son’s eyes.  “You’re still pretty weak, though, so why don’t we start with some soup so you don’t get sick, alright?”

“Okay,” Harry agreed cheerfully, just happy to be getting anything at all.

It was very strange when, after he had finished half a bowl of chicken soup that was brought by something called a ‘house elf’ named Flopsy who seemed  _ delighted  _ to see him, his Mum and Dad and Padfoot and Moony all praised him excessively, even though all he’d done was eaten and he couldn’t even finish it all.  Then his dad asked if he wanted to go  _ watch television,  _ and Harry looked at him with wide eyes full of wonder.

“Really?” he asked, dumbstruck.

“Of course,” James laughed, ruffling his hair.  “Normally it’s hard to get muggle stuff to work in magic houses, but your mother’s a genius whose managed to pull it off.”

“Oh James,” Lily snorted, rolling her eyes.  “You’re just a sap who is easily impressed.”

“Or maybe my wife is exceptional,” her husband rebutted.  “And she’s made a son who’s just as much so.”

Harry smiled widely; he just couldn’t believe that someone thought he,  _ Harry,  _ was exceptional, and he was still smiling as he sat up to get out of bed so they could go to the parlour.

“Whoa there, little man,” James declared, holding up a hand, and Harry couldn’t help but flinch back.  James put it down, looking guilty.

“Sorry pup,” he sighed.  “I just meant that you shouldn’t be walking around yet; I’ll carry you.  And while I’m at it, let’s get one thing straight- well, straighter than I am,” he added, smiling cheekily, and Lily rolled her eyes.   _ Honestly,  _ just because they were both bisexual…

“None of us will ever, ever,  _ ever  _ hit you,” James swore, meaning it with every fibre of his being.  “And if someone  _ does  _ dare to lay a hand on you, or yell at you, or make you feel unsafe or upset in  _ any  _ way, you need to come right to us so we can ma- so we can fix it,” he amended, not wanting to make Harry feel uncomfortable by using the phrase ‘make them regret it’ (even though that  _ was  _ what they would do).

“Okay… dad,” Harry agreed, his voice hesitant but happy as he finally got to use the word again.  James  _ beamed,  _ and his hazel eyes lit up like Christmas lights.

“There’s a good kiddo,” he laughed, ruffling Harry’s Harry.  “You promise?”

“I  _ promise,”  _ Harry swore, emboldened by his father’s smile as his mother kissed his cheek and fixed the blankets that he was wrapped in so that no part of him could be cold while his father spirited him off to the living room.

“That’s my little man,” he praised, beaming again.  They got him comfortable on the sofa, his feet in his father’s lap and his head in his mother’s while Remus and Sirius sat on either side, and even though Harry had never really gotten to watch the telly before except through the slats of his cupboard, he barely made it through the first half of some cartoon programme before he was fast asleep, feeling  _ safe.   _

________

“And then we just add two teaspoons of baking soda,” his mother told him two weeks later as they stood side by side in the kitchen, Harry on a stool beside Lily so he could reach the counter.  When his parents had asked him how he wanted to celebrate getting his cast off, he’d answered with ‘baking’ since he could do it with his parents and he’d actually be allowed to  _ eat  _ what they made this time.

“Mm-hmm,” Harry acknowledged, tongue between his teeth as he concentrated on measuring carefully.  They were both covered in flower and the kitchen was a mess, and Harry  _ loved  _ it- Petunia’s kitchen had never been allowed to look like that, and the sheer contrast pleased him greatly, reminding him that now he was with people who loved him.

“Perfect, Bambi,” she praised exuberantly, determined that he should be encouraged for every little thing to help raise his confidence.  “And Padfoot,” she turned to the dog animagus, waving her wooden spoon chidingly at him, “stop eating all the cookie dough!”

“Never,” he declared, putting another gob in his mouth as Moony smacked him playfully.  “Harry’s food tastes too good.”

“Mummy helped,” Harry laughed, cheeks going pink, and Lily’s heart clenched- she’d never get tired of hearing him call her  _ mummy.   _ Often he only called her  _ mum,  _ but when he was distracted and having fun and not feeling too self-conscious,  _ mummy  _ would slip out and Lily would be ready to die of happiness.

“You did most of it yourself, baby boy,” she reminded him.  “I’m just reading you the recipe and taking stuff out of the oven.”

“Daddy didn’t help at all,” Sirius said, mouth full of dough.

“At least he’s not  _ eating  _ our unfinished product,” Lily chided, looking over to where her husband was trying to pull dried clumps of bread dough off of his hands.

“Uncle Moony  _ was  _ helping, but he got caught up in studying the history of French cooking,” James laughed as he scrubbed his hands yet again, and they all looked over at where the werewolf was curled up on the couch, oblivious to them all as he buried his nose in an old, leather-bound tome.  When they’d invited their old friend to live with him, they were startled to see how badly he’d had it- going from job to job to job, barely making enough to eat and, even when he did, usually going hungry anyway so he could pay to send a letter to Dumbledore asking after Harry, which always came back with the same reply: ‘fine and happy.’  Wasn’t  _ that  _ a lie…

He’d managed to put some meat on his bones, though, as had Sirius, so that the only one in the family still under their target weight was Harry, but they were working on that, too, Lily mixing all of Harry’s potions with juice in the morning so they wouldn’t taste quite so bad before they fed him a good, nutritious breakfast preceding another day of healthy, fattening meals and snacks.

There was a crash and a cry as Harry reached for another bowl and it slipped out of his hands, and his eyes filled with tears as he looked at them in a panic.

“I’m sorry!” he gasped, nearly hyperventilating.  He got down from his stool, not seeming to care that the broken pieces were cutting into his bare hands and feet as he scrambled to pick them up.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Lily reassured him, picking him up off the floor as James banished the broken glass, getting dough on his wand in the process.  “It’s just a bowl.  _ You’re  _ the only thing we can’t replace.”  Then she set him gently on a clean spot on the counter and carefully removed every little piece of glass from his hands and feet before cleaning the wounds and sealing them up.

“There,” she exclaimed, kissing his nose.  “Good as new.” Then she looked at him, her eyes full of sadness.

“It’s okay if you break something, baby darling,” she told him.  “You’re a kid; you’re gonna break stuff. But  _ nothing  _ is more important to us than your health and safety, and we promise we’ll never be mad at you.  It’s just very important that you don’t try to pick up broken glass, alright? I know  _ Petunia,”  _ she couldn’t help but spit the name with venom, gently stroking Harry’s hair reassuringly when he flinched, “might have told you otherwise, but she isn’t here anymore, and neither she  _ or anyone else  _ is  _ ever  _ allowed to hurt you again- not on my watch.”

“And mine,” James added.

“And mine!” Sirius garbled, his teeth stuck together due to trying to eat a not-yet cooled piece of treacle fudge.

“And mine,” Moony called from the living room, having finally emerged from his book at the commotion.

“Thanks guys,” Harry whispered shyly, and Lily carefully brushed a bit of flour off of his nose.

“Of course, my love,” his mother asserted, gently wiping a bit of flour off of his nose with her thumb.  “Now, let’s get that last batch of cookie dough into the oven before Siri eats it all, hm?”


	4. Chapter 3

They were all having breakfast on the morning of the twentieth of July when the morning mail was delivered.  It was usually just a copy of  _ The Daily Prophet  _ (that they all made sarcastic commentary on, amusing Harry) and one or two gifts for Harry, who had stopped trying to protest what he saw as the extravagant amount of presents they were lavishing on him when they’d told him that they were making up for nearly ten toyless, presentless years, although his cheeks still went pink and he offered profuse thanks when they handed him whatever had come that day.  This morning, however, in addition to a brand-new sneakoscope and a lego set (they had all his muggle presents forwarded via owl from their muggle P.O. box in the nearest town), the bundle of paper mail was a bit thicker than usual, although Harry didn’t immediately notice, too busy staring in awe at the fairly simple toys, as he did every morning.

“What is it, da?” Harry asked as Lily snuck another spoonful of eggs on his plate, looking up as he noted his father’s silence.  “Did the minister say something stupid again?”

He looked up nervously when no answer came, checking to make sure his hearing aids were working as he looked at his father staring wordlessly at a thick envelope with green ink on the back.  Harry could just make out the words  _ Harry Potter, Third Door on the Right, West Wing, Potter Manor.   _ That  _ was  _ Harry’s room (which was right next to his parents’ bedroom, so they could hear if he had a nightmare and come comfort him.  Thankfully, they’d been getting less prevalent in the past couple of months). He looked at the seal- Hogwarts. His letter had come.

“I know we hadn’t exactly talked about it yet, Prongslet, but we wanted to leave it up to you, whether you wanted to go now or wait a year,” his father said.  “Things have been really tough for you, so we would completely understand if you decided you wanted to get more comfortable first before you headed off to school.  We also understand if you want to go; it’s completely up to you.”

“I… I really wanna go…” Harry began, “but…” he chewed his lip anxiously, and Lily gently pried it out so that he wouldn’t bite it open, “but I just got you guys back, and I dunno if I’m ready to leave you yet…”

“Oh sweetheart,” his mum said, softly resting a hand on his face.  “We can go too, if you want- Poppy has offered me an opportunity to continue my healing apprenticeship, and your father would come with me.  We just wanted to leave  _ that  _ decision up to you as well, since we understand if you don’t wanna have your parents around all the time.”

Harry sniffed a bit as Moony pulled out a hankie and handed it to James, who wiped Harry’s nose with it.  “I  _ never  _ wanna be without you guys ever again,” the little boy swore ardently.  “Could you… would you  _ really  _ come with me to Hogwarts?”

“Of course, Prongslet,” James declared, and Harry looked up hopefully.

“Then I’d really like to go,” he piped up in a small voice, and his dad pumped his fist triumphantly.

“Then it’s settled!” he whooped.  “We’re going to Hogwarts!”

__________

Harry’s beautiful eyes were wide as saucers.  Despite the fact that his parents had given him a pile of presents that was taller than he was and took up half the  _ enormous  _ living room before taking him to an amusement park for his birthday yesterday, his parents and godfathers were throwing into the magical expanding shopping bags anything that he so much as  _ looked at  _ with interest here in Diagon Alley, and no amount of “you really don’t have to’s…” was enough to dissuade them.  After meeting Griphook and renewing their magical checking cards (sort of like a muggle debit card), they’d ridden down to Harry’s vault, which was separate from the main Potter vaults, where his parents pointed to the giant pile of gold and silver and bronze and told him to take as much as he wanted as spending money for the year.  When he’d carefully plucked a modest handful of coins, Sirius had looked at it in dissatisfaction and swept an entire armful into the expanding bag before ruffling Harry’s hair playfully, messing it up even further.

“Still our little spendthrift, I see,” he’d laughed as the got back into the cart.  “We’ll cure you of that yet.”

Then Harry had thanked Griphook for the help, and the Goblin’s eyes had gone wide as his face softened into almost a smile, musing in satisfaction that he would quite like having this little Potter boy as a client- very much so.

The apothecary was fascinating but smelly, and Harry’s mum had given him a handkerchief to cover his nose with before she helped him measure out boomslang skin and bicorn horn powder and eye of newt and a bunch of other things that Harry carefully catalogued in his mind before she looked at the list again.

“Hmph,” she grumbled.  “Pewter cauldron- I don’t know  _ who’s  _ teaching potions this year, but they should know that it’s  _ much  _ easier for a beginner to work with copper.”  Then she completely bypassed the pewter products, throwing a copper cauldron one size above standard into the shopping bag.

“Leaves a little more room for error,” she explained to her son.  “This way, if something boils a bit over, it’s not going to ruin your cauldron  _ and  _ your potion.  I might have to have a word with whoever Dumbledore’s hired, because he  _ clearly  _ doesn’t understand that potions can be a tricky subject that takes a while to get the hang of.”

“Too bad  _ you’re  _ not teaching potions,” Harry told his mother with a smile.  “You even make them taste less gross.”

“Well, if you have to take half a shop’s worth of them for who-knows-how-long, we might as well make it as pleasant as possible,” she told her son as she leaned down to kiss his head, glaring at the cashier, who’d caught sight of Harry’s scar and was now ogling him openly.

“Hmm,” she muttered thoughtfully, looking at a set of colourful healer’s robes and grabbing two.  “These might make your checkups with your Aunt Poppy and I a little bit more fun.”

_ “Anything  _ I do with you is fun,” Harry told her seriously, just glad to have her with him.  She smiled at him again- her little boy  _ hated _ his weekly check-ups, so the fact that he put up with them cheerfully just because she was there meant more to her than he would ever know.

“Anything I do with  _ you  _ is fun,” she responded, kissing his head again and picking him up to give him the biggest hug she could manage without squeezing him too tightly.  “I love you  _ soooo  _ much!”

“I love you too mum,” he told her, blushing brilliantly as she carried him towards the checkout, not quite ready to let him go just yet, and he was just as happy to be held by his mummy.

“Alright, now we just need to pick up your clothes at Madame Malkins and we can go get your wand,” she told him.  “I’d rather wait on the broom a bit, just because your health is still kind of delicate and first years can’t bring theirs anyway.  As soon as you’ve learned to fly on the school ones, though, we’ll get you something that can  _ really  _ move.”

“Whatever you say I’m fine with,” Harry responded, still so,  _ so  _ full of relief that his dad had glamoured his scars for him before the robe fitting.  It had taken a while, too, since his parents had wanted to get him a few more sets of casual robes and some more good jumpers and trousers, even though they’d already filled his closet and drawers at home with nice and comfortable clothing for all weather and occasions. 

“You’re so easy to please,” she told him fondly.  “Somehow I wonder how you’re James’ child.”

“Hey!” James exclaimed playfully as they walked to pick up their clothing purchases.  “I’m not  _ that  _ difficult!”

“Only because I’ve trained you up well by now,” Lily teased back.  They were quick to collect and pay in Madame Malkin’s, although on their way out they nearly ran into a family of pale-skinned, light-blonde people.

“Oh, hello Narcissa,” Lily greeted warmly, giving her old girlfriend a kiss on the cheek.

“Lily,” the blonde replied joyfully, “we were so glad to hear you were up and about.  And this must be little Harry!” She knelt down to get a good look at the small eleven-year old as her son watched, confused, but Lucius pulled his wife back up by the arm.

“Come, Narcissa- there’s no need to cavort about with the common sort,” he sneered, and Harry glared at him- he didn’t like  _ anyone  _ talking to his mother that way, and he didn’t like the way that this man was treating his wife.

“Lucius,” she chided mildly, turning to her husband, “there is  _ no need  _ to make a scene about my greeting an old friend.”

“I believe we’ve talked about the sort of company you keep, have we not, my dear?  It is something that needs to be remedied.”

“And I believe we’ve established that  _ I’m  _ the one who’s more gifted at magic of the two of us, so I will talk to whomever I damn well please!” she swore at him.  “Now, if you’re going to be in a mood all afternoon, I’ll simply take Draco and catch up with an old friend,” she told him haughtily, taking her son by the hand.  “Lily, would you mind…”

“Of course not, Cissy,” Lily assured her.  “We were just about to go get Harry’s wand- and  _ oh!”  _ she cried, “he’ll need an owl- I nearly forgot.”

“You don’t have to get me an owl, mum,” Harry told her.  “Padfoot and Moony are getting a place in Hogsmeade, and you and dad will be right there, so I won’t have anyone to send mail to.”

“That will change, baby, and besides, they’re wonderful companions.  And it’s been ten years; won’t you let me spoil you a bit?”

“Alright,” Harry agreed, blushing and looking down but with a wide smile on his face.  “So,” he turned to Narcissa politely. “How do you know my mother?”

“Oh,” the woman laughed, looking at Lily.  “Can I tell him?”

“We used to date,” the redhead told her son, having already explained the concept of sexuality and such to Harry, including how she and James were both bi (James had dated Regulus for a little while, but they didn’t want to break Harry’s heart with the story of Sirius’ dead brother  _ just  _ yet).

“Oh, okay,” Harry said.

“Yes, Lily was lovely,” Narcissa murmured.  “We were quite happy until I got saddled with that pompous git back there,” she said, jabbing her thumb back towards the robe shop.  “And then Lily fell head-over-heels for your father, but I got Draco out of the arrangement, so things aren’t all bad.”

_ “Mum!”  _ Draco protested as Narcissa kissed his cheek.  “Not in public, remember?”

“My, how they grow,” Narcissa quipped, rolling her eyes.  “One moment you’re holding their hand and picking flowers in the garden and the next they’re insisting they’re all grown up and can handle a racing broom,” she sighed, quirking an eyebrow at her son.

“Father thinks I can,” the child pointed out.

“Your father thinks a lot of things, darling, and not once in our marriage has he been right.  Learn to fly  _ properly  _ at Hogwarts and we’ll talk next summer.”

“Alright,” Draco sighed, accepting that that was as far as he was getting with the conversation.

“Here we are,” Sirius suddenly piped up, pointing at a dusty old shop with the name  _ Ollivander’s  _ written out across the top.   _ Makers of fine wands since 382 BC.   _

“That’s a really long time,” Harry muttered as they stepped into the shop and he sneezed as dust hit his front and a strange tingle of magic made itself known at his back.  Privately he thought that it must have been that long since the place had been clean, as well, but he kept  _ that  _ to himself.

“Oh, what a surprise,” a whispery voice came from one side, and Harry jumped, falling back into his father as the wizened old wand maker startled him.

“Still scaring the pants off children, I see,” Narcissa told the old geezer, looking rather unimpressed.  “Come now, Garrick, the poor boy has hearing aids- that’s just being downright rude.”

“Apologies, young Potter,” Ollivander sighed, looking chastised but turning to Harry.  He’d been planning a big theatrical presentation for the child for years, but now will all these adults here he doubted he could get away with half of it.

“S’okay,” Harry stammered, looking down at his trainers.  He and Draco were put on separate stools as they were measured, and Draco found his wand on only the second try.  

“10’, Hawthorn, and unicorn hair,” the old man muttered.  “Harder to turn to the dark arts, you know. I imagine his father will be rather displeased.”

“There’s not much that pleases his father,” Narcissa said, glaring at him, “but you don’t need to bring that up in front of him- he’s forced to deal with enough of our squabbles at home, thank you.”  Draco just ducked his head, embarrassed- why, oh  _ why  _ did his mother always do this?

Harry followed the conversation, fascinated.  He could definitely see why this woman and his mum had gotten on so well.

“Alright, Mr. Potter, your turn,” Ollivander said, and Harry’s father lifted him up onto the stool as Garrick handed him a random wand.  Harry took it and the lights shattered, startling the poor child out of his wits as he apologised frantically.

“It’s alright cub,” Remus told him.  “This happens all the time- whenever a wand is a bad fit; it’s not your fault.”

Ollivander had already handed another wand, which caused a wind to ripple around the shop, knocking boxes off the shelves.  By failed try number five, Lily put her hands on her hips and turned to the man.

“Really, sir, I think that’s enough.  Everyone here knows you have a perfect idea of  _ exactly  _ which wand you want for my son, so if you could just go and get it and spare us any more of this madness?”

“Oh, very well,” the man grumbled; he much preferred serving muggleborns and orphans who didn’t have competent wizarding adults to ruin his fun.

The wand he handed Harry next did indeed make a beautiful green and gold light show, and Harry smiled widely as he felt warmth flood his whole body.

“Wonderful, pup!” Sirius praised as James, Lily, and Remus offered their own expressions of awe- none of them were faked, either, as Harry’s fountain of sparks had been far taller and more beautiful than they’d been expecting.

“Alright, now we’ve just got to make a trip to the pet store,” James reminded them, eager to get his son his first owl.

“Draco already has one, but we’d love to accompany you as well,” Narcissa said.

“The more the merrier,” Sirius declared, putting an arm around one of his two favourite cousins.

“Oh, speaking of which,” Narcissa remembered, pulling out an envelope, “could you give this to Andi next time you see her?  It’s been a while since I could sneak her a letter, so there’s a little something in there for Nymphadora’s last birthday as well.”

“She’ll hit you if you call her Nymphadora,” Sirius warned, remembering the many times his cousin had rained her tiny fists upon him when she was only six and seven, before he went to Azkaban.  

“I know,” Narcissa smiled sadly.  “But one of the few perks of never getting to see my niece is that I can use her given name.”

“I never did understand you two’s love of that name,” Sirius laughed, trying to turn the conversation away from heavier topics.

“When we were eight and five, I think it was, we met a fairy in the garden who’d picked up a little English.  She told us that that was her name, and we were so enamoured with it that Andi and I agreed that whoever had a daughter first would name her that.  We used to come out and visit her all the time until one day Bella found out.” She leaned in closer to her cousin’s ear, so the children couldn’t hear.  “She ripped her wings right off and threw her in the pond before either of us could do a thing about it. I cried for weeks, and I suspect Andi would have as well if she wasn’t trying to keep it together for me.”

“She always was a vile old bint,” Sirius muttered darkly as they reached the pet shop, but it was hard to stay in a foul mood when they watched Harry’s eyes light up as he caught sight of a beautiful Snowy owl, who fluttered right down to land on his shoulder, pecking his ear fondly.

“Oi, she’s usually a real cranky thing,” the woman at the counter said, looking at him in surprise.  “Tell you what- you can take  _ her  _ for half price.”  Harry smiled gratefully at her, and he was petting Hedwig (he’d decided to name her after one of his mother’s favourite historical witches) fondly when a great orange mound jumped down from a top shelf, crashing right into Harry’s chest and nearly knocking him over.  James’ draw dropped as he kept Harry from hitting the floor and Hedwig fluttered up, casting a dirty look at this creature who had disturbed her so.

“Crookshanks, you old  _ bastard,”  _ James said what all four of Harry’s adults were thinking as the old cat settled pleasantly in Harry’s arms, giving the same smug purr he always had when he was near his boy.  “Never thought I’d see you again!”

“Oh, are you gonna take  _ that one  _ from us too?” the shopgirl asked, nearly crying in gratitude.   _ “Thank Merlin!” _

They were about to pay and go when there was a hiss and a scream and an albino Indian cobra went slithering toward the front door, chased by a frantic young lad very worried about the security of his position.

_ “Hey,”  _ Harry hissed, parseltongue spilling from his mouth as easily as English did- he had always loved snakes, and they’d been some of his only friends when he was younger and working long, hot summer days in Petunia’s garden.   _ “Where you going?”  _

The long, pale pink snake stopped, turning abruptly to head towards Harry.   _ “Right here issss good, I sssssuposssse,”  _ she declared, slithering up to settle around Harry’s shoulders like a scarf as Crookshanks eyed the newcomer warily.   _ “I am Nala, little sssspeaker.”  _

“You’re a  _ parselmouth?”  _ Draco asked in awe, speaking his first direct words to Harry.

“You mean I can talk to snakes?” Harry asked, shrugging.  “Yeah, can’t everyone?”

“No pup, that’s a very rare ability, even in your family,” Sirius informed him.  “The last one was James’ grandpa, but he’s been dead for over fifty years now.”

“Oh,” Harry stammered, suddenly aware that both of the shop workers (as well as Draco) were staring at him.

“You know what,” the cashier said, “you don’t even have to pay- those three have given us nothing but grief, so just take them, you absolute  _ saint  _ of a boy.”  With his hair covering his scar and his small stature making him look so much younger than he was, she never even realised he was Harry Potter and simply thought of him as the boy that made her job  _ a lot  _ easier.

Harry walked out with his parents, his godfathers, his three new pets, and his sort-of-maybe-a-future friend Draco and his mother, their arms laden with packages.  “Well,” Narcissa sighed, giving Lily a hug goodbye and James a fond pat on the arm, “I suppose this is where I leave you. Siri,” she ordered her cousin, “you stay out of trouble now.”

“Like  _ that’ll  _ ever happen,” he laughed as he gave her a parting hug.  “But I’m sure my boyfriend will keep my from causing  _ too  _ much havoc.”

“Or he’ll  _ help  _ you,” Lily snorted, knowing full well who had been the mastermind behind some of the Marauders’ best work.  “I’m just glad you two will be in Hogsmeade; I don’t trust you not to destroy the house without somebody watching you.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” Padfoot cried, faux-hurt.  “How you wound me!” 

“How did we get stuck with all these drama queens?” Lily asked her son, who giggled and shrugged, Nala sunning herself on his neck and Hedwig making herself comfortable on top of Crookshanks’ back, the only spot left that was close enough to Harry.

“Oh, my Lily flower, your beauty is like a rose with thorns,” James decried, joining in Sirius’ antics.  Harry laughed again.

“You’re so silly, dad,” he declared, and James ruffled his hair.

“Well, I  _ gotta  _ be silly, because  _ he’s  _ Sirius.”   He pointed to his brother, and Lily and Moony groaned.

“What are we gonna do with our men?” she asked him, and he sighed.

“I believe that we’ve already shacked ourselves up, so there really isn’t anything we  _ can  _ do except try not to go crazy,” he remarked wryly, as the other two stopped them all at  _ Florean Fortescue’s,  _ ordering Harry an ice cream so large that he’d never be able to finish it as he told them as much and they ignored him.

“Don’t worry Bambi,” his mother told him.  “It’ll get eaten with those two around.”

“They’re already getting their  _ own  _ ice cream though,” Harry informed her, pointing at the load they were paying for, “so how will they ever be able to finish mine?”

“Let me tell you a secret,” Lily giggled, leaning down and whispering directly into Harry’s hearing aid.  “They’re bottomless pits.”

Hours later, when Harry was still so full of ice cream he could barely finish a quarter of his plate, he mused that his mother sure was right a lot as he watched his father and godfather going in for thirds.


	5. Chapter 4

Harry woke even earlier than usual on the morning of September the first, excited for his first day at Hogwarts.  They didn’t even have to leave until nine o’clock, and he didn’t want to wake his parents yet, so he opened his perfectly packed (expanded) trunk and took the potions textbook out from the top of it.  He’d already read it so many times that there were worn spots on the bottoms of some of the pages where his thumb rested. He looked at some of the comments his mum had made with a warm feeling in his chest.

_Remember to turn the heat off before you add the porcupine quills- Love, mum_

_Bambi, despite what it says in the textbook,_ **_this_ ** _potion works better if you stir_ **_counter_ ** _clockwise._

_Go get ‘em, kiddo.  Mummy loves you!_

His dad had made similar comments in his transfiguration textbook, and Harry felt a soft glow of contentment surround him as he sat cross-legged on the bed in his own bedroom, with a trunk full of nice school things that _his parents_ had bought him, reading one of many textbooks that they’d filled with notes to remind him how much they loved him.

He flipped through his charms textbook next, already having learned the potions one by heart.  All of his family members had written things in that one, and Harry had to stifle a laugh as he turned one of the pages.

 _Remember, cub-_ **_swish_ ** _and_ **_flick._ **

_That’s what your Uncle Moony said last night!_

_Really, Padfoot, that’s my kid’s textbook you’re writing in!_

_Aw, c’mon Prongs, he already knows about the birds and the bees._

_All of you stop it! Now Bambi, remember to put the stress on the_ **_second to last_ ** _syllable for the levitation charm, or it won’t work as well.  Love, Mummy_

_Flower, he knows it’s you- you’re the only one giving him actual advice in hear._

_Shut up James, and let the poor kid read his textbook._

Harry giggled, full of an overwhelming love for his parents and godfathers.  Carefully, he padded over and plucked a quill from his desk, pointing his new wand at it.

 _“Wingardium Levi_ **_o_ ** _sa,”_ he whispered, smiling when the feather rose steadily six inches off the duvet and stayed there.  He was making it do figure-8’s when the door opened softly and his mother came to check on him.

“Sorry Bambi,” she told him, when she realised he was awake.  “I thought you were still sleeping, or I would have knocked. That’s a really great levitation charm, though.  I’ve never seen someone get it so well on the first try.” She came over and sat beside him, putting her arm around him as they both sat on his bed, wearing matching Wonder Woman pyjamas as Harry carefully smoothed a wrinkle in the Spiderman Duvet cover.

“You excited to go back to healer training, mummy?” he asked her, and she ruffled his hair.

“You bet,” she whispered, not wanting to wake her husband in the next room.  “What about you- are you nervous about starting Hogwarts at all?”

“A little,” he admitted sheepishly.  “I mean, nobody at my old school liked me very much… what if nobody likes me at Hogwarts?”

“Anyone who doesn’t like you is either crazy or didn’t try to get to know you very well,” Lily declared firmly, “because you are _perfect._ But if things get tough in the dorms, you know that your father and I will have a room set up in our quarters if you need to get away for a bit.”

“Thanks mum,” Harry smiled, leaning into her embrace.  “But do you think you could let go of me for a second? I really gotta pee…”

Lily laughed, realising that she had been snuggling her son rather tightly, her maternal instincts taking every chance they got to make up for lost time.  “Of course, little man,” she chuckled quietly, loosening her embrace with one last kiss as he scampered off to the bathroom connected to his bedroom.

Breakfast was a lively affair, many of the elves holding back tears as they served their family one last meal before they’d all be gone until Christmas.  Lily buttered Harry’s toast before he could get the chance, just like she did every morning (her son never put enough butter, in her opinion; she knew it was because he was afraid of taking too much, so she would keep doing it for him until he learned that he could _never_ take too much when it came to his home and his family).  James tried in vain to straighten both his and Harry’s hair, to no avail.  Sirius laughed about the fact that he even tried, and Moony looked fondly at Sirius over the top of his newspaper and suffered himself to be kissed when his sappy boyfriend threw his arms around him and started whispering sweet nothings in his ear.

Flooing made Harry dizzy, so they took their muggle SUV to King’s Cross Station, Flopsy in the back seat ready to take it home again afterwards.  Harry stood to the side a little awkwardly with Hedwig on his shoulder, Crookshanks in his arms, and Nala around his neck as the adults insisted on getting his trunk for them; he was used to being made to unload the car whenever Vernon and Petunia came home from anywhere, no matter if the things in it weighed up to two or three times more than he did.

“Well, here we go,” Sirius said, letting out a breath of excitement.  “Moony and I are going to walk to the nearest apparation point and head to Hogsmeade, so we’ll see you when we come to visit the castle; we love you pup!”  Harry returned the affection and gave them both big hugs when they held their arms out, and then he said goodbye to Flopsy (it was a bit tearful on the elf’s part) before gently stroking Nala’s head.

_“You’ve gotta get in the carrier, girl; people will freak out if they sssseee a ssssnake.”_

_“how come_ ** _I_ ** _have to get in the cage but the cat doesn't?”_ the cobra asked grumpily.

 _“It’s okay for Crookshanks to be out becausssse he doesn’t have poissssonousssss fangsss,”_ Harry reminded her.   _“Look- Hedwig isssss going in her cage too.”_

 _“Oh, fffffine,”_ Nala finally relented, slithering huffily into Crookshank’s carrier.  Hedwig fluttered into her cage with only slightly less of an attitude before they were heading towards the platform, Lily reminding Harry that it wouldn’t hurt as they walked through the wall.  They got a few strange looks carting around their trunks with Hedwig’s cage on top as Harry held a cat to his chest while the supposedly empty carrier hissed crankily, but the people of King’s Cross were very busy, and a few strange things while using public transportation were only to be expected, after all.  At least _this_ group wasn’t singing praises to cthulhu or anything, unlike some of the drugees one may occasionally encounter on the tube.

They made sure nobody was paying very much attention as they stepped through the wall between platforms 9 and 10, and those muggles that _did_ catch it out of the corner of their eyes (it was a busy train station- impossible to avoid, after all) merely rubbed their eyes and looked down into half-empty coffee cups before getting a refill.

“Alright poppet, here we are- the Hogwarts Express,” Lily said, smiling as Harry looked at the great red and black steam engine in awe.  “Here’s some money for the sweets cart; Daddy and I have to go sit at the special compartment for new teachers behind the conductor.”

“I’ve already got my allowance in my trunk,” Harry reminded them, but Lily merely crouched down, pulling Harry’s head to her chest.

“Shhh,” she soothed, kissing his forehead.  “Just let us spoil you.”

“Thanks guys,” he said, carefully pocketing the coins and shifting nervously, not quite ready to let his parents out of his sight lest they disappear again but knowing that he needed to get used to not seeing them every second of the day while he was at school.  Besides, he needed to make friends his own age, which was harder to do when you were sharing a compartment with two adults.

“Hey,” James lifted his chin carefully.  “We love you, and you can come find us if you get lonely, alright?”

“Okay,” Harry agreed, relaxing minimally- his parents weren’t going anywhere; they’d told him that a million times.  They found an empty compartment towards the back for Harry and his father hoisted his trunk up onto the rack without using magic.

“Gotta do some heavy lifting sometimes,” he said, winking at his son.  “Keeps me young.”

“C’mon, you big doofus,” Lily ordered, rolling her eyes.  “Let’s stop standing here scaring off anyone who might wanna make friends with Harry.”  They each kissed him one more time and said a final ‘I love you’ before heading towards the front, leaving Harry to swing his legs from the bench (they didn’t reach the floor) and make conversation with Nala while he waited.

Eventually, just a few minutes before the train was supposed to leave, a gangly redhead with lots of freckles and reaching a good foot taller than Harry opened the door tentatively.  “May I sit here?” he asked. “Everywhere else is full.” It wasn’t _strictly_ true, but he’d seen the short, scrawny little boy standing nervously with his parents on the platform and thought he could use some company.

“Sure,” Harry agreed, giving the boy a shy little smile that warmed his heart immediately.

“I’ve got sandwiches,” Ron proclaimed, feeling an immediate need to fatten the boy up (out of all her children, Molly Weasley could often be found thinking that her Ronnie was the most similar, personality-wise, to she herself).  “It’s just corned beef, but I’m happy to share.”

“That’s okay,” Harry told him.  “My mum made sandwiches too, and she always packs too many, so you can have some if you want- they’re ham and cheese.”  Ron liked ham and cheese _much_ better than corned beef, but he personally thought that the other boy should _keep_ all his food, so he declined politely for the time being.

“I’m Ron,” he declared, holding his hand out.  Harry took it.

“Harry,” he reciprocated, his fringe moving to the side a little as a breeze came through the open window, exposing his scar.  To his credit, Ron didn’t do anything more than raise his ginger eyebrows in surprise- this had _not_ been how he’d pictured Harry Potter.

“Er, yeah…” Harry mumbled, noting his expression.  “Uh, would you mind if I let my snake out of her carrier?  She’s very well-behaved.”

“S-sure,” Ron agreed, a bit shakily, but Nala merely gave him a cursory glance before slithering over to the armrest closest to the sun and warming herself on it.

“So,” Harry eventually broke the silence, “do you have any siblings?”

“Six,” Ron sighed, and he looked very distraught by this, for some reason.

“That’s nice,” Harry hummed.  “I’d really like to have a brother or sister, I think.  I grew up with my cousin Dudley, before my parents woke up from their coma, but he really just used to beat me up a lot.”

“Oh,” Ron muttered, wondering why anyone would want to beat Harry up- he had a face like a baby deer.  “Erm, my little sister Ginny beats me up sometimes… she’s very strong, as small as she is…”

“Smaller people can run faster,” Harry agreed sympathetically.  “I think I’d rather be smaller than bigger- Dudley was bigger, but he could only beat the stuffing out of me if I had nowhere to run.”

“Ginny can catch me even though my legs are longer,” Ron exhaled mournfully.  “I really try not to make her angry, but it’s quite easy; she doesn’t like it when I try to keep her from doing dangerous things.”

“Oh, that sounds like a tough spot,” Harry responded.  “But hey, she won’t be able to beat you up while you’re at Hogwarts,” he added brightly.

“I s’pose not,” Ron replied.  “Yet I’m _still_ gonna miss her, curse the little blighter.”

“I think I hear the trolley coming round,” Harry suddenly observed, adjusting his hearing aids a little.  “Would you like anything?”

“No thank you,” Ron answered, blushing a bit.  “We don’t really have any extra money, with so many of us…”

“That’s okay, I’ve got it,” Harry offered, pleased as punch to have someone to share things with.  He ordered a little bit of everything and brought it back, spreading it out in the middle. Nala came and snatched up a cockroach cluster before curling back up for a nap, and Ron couldn’t help but smile a bit.

“I think she did us a favour there,” he laughed.  “Those things are disgusting.”

“They didn’t _sound_ very good, but I wasn’t sure what you liked,” Harry said, munching on a licorice wand and pulling out a sandwich from his bag.  “Here, take as much as you want,” he told his new friend. “I can’t eat a lot of sweets or I get sick to my stomach.”

“We can always save some for later, too,” Ron reminded him, but he _did_ take a cauldron cake from the enormous pile.  “This is scabbers, by the way,” he said, motioning to his rat.  Crookshanks hissed at him, but Harry managed to hold him back.

“I’m sorry; he’s not usually like this,” he told Ron (even though for everyone but Harry, Crookshanks was _always_ like this).

“It’s okay,” he reassured his friend.  “Scabbers really isn’t very exciting, anyway- we’ve had him for almost ten years now, and I’ve never seen him do anything more exciting than spin in a circle.”

“Nala sleeps a lot too,” Harry remarked, pointing to his slumbering cobra.  “She’s really not very frightening at all unless you were to treat her badly.”

“So you really like snakes, huh?” Ron asked, and Harry nodded excitedly.

“Yeah, I’m a parselmouth,” he chattered.  “The first one in my family since my great-grandpa.”

“So you think you’re gonna be in Slytherin, then?” Ron wondered, looking Harry over critically.  “Because you gotta be careful if you end up there- some of those kids can be _really_ mean.”

“I’m used to handling mean kids,” Harry shrugged.  “Honestly I’m just glad to be here. I don’t really care what house I’m in- what about you?”

“I mean, I guess I thought I’d be a Gryffindor like the rest of my family, but you never know.”

They continued talking about anything and everything, until a little while later their compartment door opened, and a black girl with very bushy hair came in, trailed anxiously by a chubby blonde with a nervous expression.

“Have you seen a toad?” she asked without preamble.  “Neville’s lost one.”

“If it’d been in here, Nala would have sussed her out already,” Harry answered as he jabbed a finger towards his snake, and Hermione stopped talking long enough to get a good look at him.

“Say, you’re Harry Potter!” she declared, giving him a good once-over and noticing his hearing aids.  “The books didn’t say anything about you being hard of hearing…”

“I’m in _books?”_ Harry asked incredulously, as Ron finally noticed the strange devices in Harry’s ears and wondered exactly what they did.

“Sure you are- loads of them.  Did you not know that?”

“I didn’t even know I was a wizard or famous until last month,” he informed her, shrinking down a bit as Ron gave the girl a look that clearly said _tone it down a bit._

“Oh, right- your parents were in a coma and everything.  But did really _no one_ tell you about magic before then?”

“The people I grew up with didn’t really like magic…” Harry mumbled, and Hermione noticed his discomfort.

“Oh, okay,” she said, and let it go.  “So, have you all tried any spells yet?  I’ve done a few, and they’ve all worked for me.”

“I’ve tried turning my rat yellow, but I think the spell my brothers gave me is a dud,” Ron sighed, tapping his second-hand wand against his knee.

“I’ve never _heard_ of a spell to turn a rat yellow,” Hermione agreed, as if this settled the matter.

“Well,” she continued.  “I’m going to go keep looking for Neville’s toad, but you boys might want to get changed- I’ve talked to the conductor, and he says we’re going to be there within the hour.”  Harry looked at Ron- he hadn’t realised how much time had gone by while they’d been getting to know each other. But sure enough, the sun was gradually sinking lower in the sky, and when Hermione shut the door, Ron turned to Harry.

“I’ll just go get changed in the lav, if you wanna come with me,” he told his new friend, who shook his head shyly.

“I think I’ll just put my robe on over my clothes,” he muttered, not wanting Ron to see all the scars on his back and chest and upper legs.

“Okay- that’s probably a good idea, since it might be chilly there,” Ron nodded.  “You know what- I think I’ll just do that too.” He felt a strong desire not to leave Harry all alone.

He was proven right as the door entered and _Malfoy_ stepped in.  He curled his lip, and the boy looked down his long nose at him.

“Weasel,” he uttered, before seeing Harry, who was looking at him with a look of hurt confusion.

“Oh,” he stammered.  “Harry…”

“This is my friend Ron,” Harry declared a bit defensively, not wanting to start a fight but making sure that Draco knew where his loyalties lied if it came down to that.

“Well that’s… nice…” Draco responded, looking as if it physically pained him.  “Anyway, I’ll just be going now. It was nice to see you We- I mean, Ron…”

“Uh-huh,” Ron grunted, dumbstruck as the boy and his two large friends turned and left their compartment.  Then he turned to Harry. “How’d you do that?” he asked in astonishment.

“Oh, er… we’ve met before,” Harry explained, scratching the back of his neck anxiously.  “Our mums used to date, and now they’re friends.”

“Oh, okay,” Ron murmured.  “Well, he seems to like you- he was certainly more polite than _I’ve_ ever seen him…”

“His mum is really nice,” Harry informed the redhead.  “It’s just his dad who’s a jerk- I think there’s a chance he could be okay, but I guess we’ll see how it goes.”

“Well, I’ll back you up no matter what,” Ron affirmed, gently patting Harry on the arm.  “Wow- I think we’re pulling into the station.”

Harry’s parents came to help him with his trunk and were delighted to meet Ron, and James got _his_ trunk down as well as they made small talk.  Lily and James made sure they were all set up again before they each gave their son a hug and pointed him towards Hagrid, who would take them to the boats.  They stayed back and didn’t go towards the carriages until they’d gotten to see their son getting his first view of the castle as he and Ron rounded the corner, his awestruck expression of delight causing Lily to reach for her husband’s hand and squeeze it tightly, bittersweet tears in both of their eyes.

“I’ve never seen anything so perfect,” James breathed, his eyes not on the castle but the perfect little boy he’d made with Lily.

“Yeah,” she sighed, sniffling a bit.  “He’s everything we could have ever wanted…”  Neither of them said what they were both thinking- _if only they hadn’t lost all that time…_

_________

If Lily was shocked to see Severus was the Hogwarts Potions Master, he was even more shocked to see her not only awake but there in the castle with her husband.  She glared at him fiercely but nothing more for the moment as Professor McGonagall brought the children in, nobody’s eyes wider than Harry as the black girl next to him said something while waving her hands around wildly, presumably explaining that the ceiling was enchanted to look like the sky outside.  Harry had already known this from when his mum would read him _Hogwarts, A History_ before bed to help keep the nightmares away, but he nodded politely and looked suitably interested nonetheless.

Hermione had rather thought that she would be a Gryffindor, but the hat insisted that their loud, reckless tendencies might drive her mad despite her significant amount of bravery.  The hat vetoed Hufflepuff, muttering something about her being ‘far too ruthless.’ Hermione took offence to that at first, but she figured the fact that her natural response was to picture herself giving the sorting hat a really good kick might have reinforced its point a little bit.

That left Ravenclaw and Slytherin, but apparently Ravenclaws didn’t have nearly enough focus, motivation, or respect for scheduling to satisfy her innate sense of drive, so the hat told her that Slytherin would be the perfect place for her and all of her ambition.  She’d agreed, silencing it when it tried to warn her that it wouldn’t be easy. She hadn’t thought it would be; the best things were _never_ easy.  

She ignored the stares; she knew they were because she was muggleborn, and she didn’t quite care.  They were going to accept her, one way or another and whether they liked it or not. That was just Hermione’s way.

Harry’s turn saw the hall go silent as soon as his name was called, but he kept his eyes on his mum and dad for moral support, sitting next to Aunt Poppy and giving him a big thumbs-up.  He sat down on the stool, waiting while Professor McGonagall readjusted the hat so it wouldn’t cover up his nose, so big was it on him.

 _Hmm, we’ve got ourselves a little survivor here,_ it whispered, and Harry jumped a bit; it was talking _into_ his mind.

 _And quite a bright mind it is,_ the hat chuckled.   _You wouldn’t be a bad Ravenclaw.  You’ve certainly got the loyalty and easy disposition for Hufflepuff, to be sure, and you’re courageous enough to be in Gryffindor, although if we’re honest I’d rather not put you there- you need to learn to put value on your own life, and those lions have at least two near-death experiences a month.  No, not there; they’re also rather loud, and you’re still easily overwhelmed, you shy little thing. Hufflepuff would be a good place, to be sure, but they might be a bit_ **_too_ ** _friendly for someone still getting used to being around a lot of people.  Ravenclaw would make quite something of you, but I’ve never put a Potter there yet and I don’t think I’d like to start now- one of your ancestors swore that the day he’d see a relative in my house would be the day pigs flew, and as nobody’s invented a spell for that yet I feel the time has not yet come._

 _Slytherin, on the other hand… well, you’ve managed to keep yourself alive this long despite_ **_incredible_ ** _odds, and that shows quite a bit of self-preservation instincts there.  You’ve not got too much ambition except that you want to be happy and make your family proud, but that’s a noble goal in its own right, to be sure.  You’re quite cunning, although far too noble to use it for dubious means. All in all, I don’t think you’re quite as much of a Slytherin as that Granger girl I’ve sorted earlier, but you’ll have privacy there and learn things that will help you in the long run.  I must admit I’ve got my own motives too… the houses have been divided for far too long, and I think you’re_ **_just_ ** _the boy to remind people that Slytherins are just as respectable as any of the others.  Yes,_ he finished, before Harry had a chance to voice (metaphorically, of course) his thoughts on the matter.   _Better be… “_ **_SLYTHERIN!_ ** _”_

The hall was still silent, completely and utterly so, and Harry’s finely tuned sense of danger led him to pivot his head towards the staff table, where a dark-robed, dark-haired, sallow-skinned man was looking at him with utter shock and what Harry thought was a significant amount of dislike.  Turning towards his mother, he could see her glaring fiercely at the man, but the sudden uprising of raucous applause and a chorus of “WE’VE GOT POTTER! WE’VE GOT POTTER!” from his new house table distracted him from thinking on it any more.

Ron was nearly at the end of the line of students to be sorted, so by the time he got to the hat, he was very hungry despite all the sweets he’d eaten on the train.  The sorting hat, too, seamed weary.

 _I’m quite over the whole ‘long, thought out speeches thing’ by this point,_ it informed him.   _That’s the trouble with being near the end of the alphabet.  Anyway, let’s keep this short- plenty of ambition, wanna protect your new best friend, yada yada yada,_ “SLYTHERIN!”

 _Well,_ Ron thought to himself as silence once again rained on the hall.   _That was rather anticlimactic._ He couldn’t quite bring himself to be troubled though, not with the way Harry was smiling at him like he was the sun poking through the clouds on a rainy day.

________

Lily marched right up to her old friend as soon as the feast had ended, pulling him into an abandoned classroom and slamming the door with a bit of non-verbal magic.

“Let me get one thing _very_ clear,” she growled at him, her first words to him in ten years full of a venom that split his heart down the middle.  “My son is a good boy who has had a very hard life and deserves to be treasured. I have had him back in my life for over six months now and not _once_ has he done anything we’ve asked him not to, so I know that if he gets into trouble it will be because _you’ve_ pushed him there.  You will be nice to him, you will be polite, you will treat him with respect, and if I hear _one word_ from even the most unreliable of sources suggesting that he is even the tiniest bit unhappy, you are going to _wish_ that Voldemort killed you- so _are we clear, Snivellus?_

Severus could do nothing but nod, knowing he deserved the way she was treating him but terrified nonetheless.

“Good,” Lily declared, letting go of his robes and stepping back.  “Now, what’s the password to the common room? My husband and I want to wish our baby a good night.”


	6. Chapter 5

Harry was up earlier than any of his dorm mates the next morning, shivering in the chill air of the dungeons as he grabbed a jumper, trousers, and some warm socks to go under his trainers.  Nobody was up yet, but he still went into the bathroom to change, not wanting to risk it. Then he grabbed his bag, which he’d prepacked the night before and which his dad had spelled with a feather-light charm.

He was surprised, when he got out into the common room, to find out that he wasn’t the only one awake yet.  It was just barely five o’clock; normally he was the only one that kept those kinds of hours, and then only because it was how he’d grown up, used to waking early to make breakfast for the Dursleys.

It was that girl from the train yesterday: Hermione Granger, who was trying to help Neville find his toad.  He looked at her warily, wondering if she’d be afraid of Nala, who was curled around his shoulders.

“Good morning Harry,” she told him.  “Nice to see someone else up early- I’ve been up since three; I was so excited I could barely sleep a wink.”

“Wow,” Harry remarked, taking in her vibrant enthusiasm.  She was sitting by the light of the fire, already wearing her uniform, a textbook open on her lap.  “That’s really early.”

“Quite,” she agreed primly.  “Normally I’m never up before six or seven, but I was just so excited.  Say,” she murmured, catching sight of Nala. “I didn’t know you could bring a snake.”

“I didn’t either, but my mum said it was okay, and she works here.  Plus, Ron brought a rat, so I think it’s okay as long as the pet is small and doesn’t cause too much trouble.”

“She’s very pretty,” Hermione breathed.  “Is she albino?”

“Er, yeah, I think so…” Harry replied shyly.  “She’s awake, if you wanna pet her…”

“Oh, I’d like to, if she wouldn’t mind…” Hermione gasped, looking equal parts nervous and excited.

“She won’t,” Harry reassured.  “She likes it when you pet her head with one finger- like this,” he said, demonstrating.  Hermione tentatively put her index finger yes above Nala’s snout, and the cobra flared her hood.

“Oh!” Hermione jumped back.  “I suppose she doesn’t like me very much.”

“No, she does,” Harry promised, scolding the snake mildly in parseltongue.  “She’s just showing off.”

“Oh…” Hermione stepped forward again, still somewhat nervous, but Nala closed her eyes and leaned into the girl’s touch when she tried again.  “Wow, she’s quite beautiful… were you talking to her, just now?”

“Yeah,” Harry chirped.  “It’s called parseltongue- I used to think everybody could do it, but supposedly it’s kinda rare.”

“That’s fascinating, though,” Hermione hummed, making a mental note to research ‘parseltongue’ in the library later.  “So, do you have a class that you’re most excited for?”

“I was really looking forward to potions, although our head of house seems a bit strange…” Professor Snape had been looking at him with what he had been certain was disdain and dislike at the feast, but then in the common room while explaining the rules of their house, he’d been nothing but impeccably polite, refusing to meet Harry’s eyes and looking nearly  _ afraid  _ of him.  Harry didn’t know what to make of it.

“Yes, he does seem a bit… unusual.  I heard some of the other houses saying he was rather irate, but last night he was quite subdued.”

“I don’t think my mum likes him very much,” Harry remarked curiously. “I’ll have to ask her about it later…”

“Professor McGonagall seems like she knows what  _ she’s  _ doing,” Hermione added conversationally.

“She was my parents’ head of house… Da calls her Minnie.”

“I don’t think  _ we  _ could get away with it…” Hermione looked rather dubious, and Harry chuckled.

“No, I don’t think we could,” Harry agreed.  “So… what textbook are you studying?”

“Charms,” Hermione replied, showing him the cover.  “I was looking at the levitation charm again- Prefect Flint said that it will be the first charm we cover.”

Harry was about to comment that it was a really fun charm to work with when Ron stumbled out, looking rather sleepy as he rubbed his eyes.

“‘Arry?” He yawned, catching sight of his friend.  “I was worried- I woke up to go to the bathroom and you were gone and your bed was made.”

“Oh, yeah…” Harry blushed, embarrassed.  “I wake up pretty early; I didn’t mean to worry you…”

“S’fine,” the redhead muttered, plopping down in an armchair.  “Jus’ glad you’re okay. Whatcha doin’?”

“Just talking about classes with Hermione,” Harry answered.  “That and waiting for breakfast to start.”

Ron looked a little more awake at the mention of breakfast, but they still had a good twenty minutes before the tables would even be set.  “Best part of the day,” he declared, his voice still heavy with sleep. He was wearing a ratty old dressing gown in a deep shade of red, and he blushed when he saw Hermione looking at it curiously.

“My whole family’s Gryffindor,” he mumbled defensively.  “We don’t really  _ have  _ any other colours…” 

“So you’re the first to go anywhere else, then,” Hermione noted.  “How do you think they’ll feel about that?”

“Dunno,” Ron shrugged, although it was easy to see that he looked a bit anxious about it.  “S’pose I’ll find out when I get a letter.”

Ron did indeed get a letter- at breakfast- and the poor owl had clearly been quite hard-pressed to get it to him on time, flapping down exhaustedly into the bowl of hash browns.  He looked at the envelope nervously, thankful that it at least wasn’t a howler, and Harry squeezed his hand reassuringly.

“Go on- open it,” he urged gently.  “I’m sure everything’ll be just fine.”

Emboldened by his friend’s support, the redhead took a deep breath and plucked it out of the exhausted bird’s talons, slitting it open with his butter knife.  He had his eyes screwed shut, but when he opened them, all the paper said was.

_ Dear Ron, _

_ Your father and I must admit we weren’t expecting that, but we’re very proud of you nonetheless.  Try not to get on the wrong side of Professor Snape, dear. _

_ Love, _

_ Mum and Dad. _

“See,” Harry encouraged, reading over his shoulder when Ron showed him the letter.  “That wasn’t bad at all!”

“No,” Ron agreed.  “I s’pose it wasn’t.”

As the hall began to fill up further, Lily brought her son a large glass of pumpkin juice, slightly discoloured.  “Here’s your potions, sweetheart; drink it all, please,” she reminded him as she fussed a bit, straightening his hearing aids and trying to push a lock of hair back into place.

“I will, mum,” he promised, leaning back eagerly into her hug.

“Good boy,” she praised, stroking his cheek.  “And remember your checkup today,” she added. “Four o’clock.  I can meet you outside your dorm if you like, to help you find the hospital wing.”

“Yes please,” Harry requested.  “I don’t wanna be late, and we kinda got lost trying to find the Great Hall this morning…”

“People get lost a lot their first few weeks of Hogwarts, sweetheart, don’t worry,” she told him.  “And if you have any trouble, just ask the nearest teacher to take you to your father and I, alright?”

“Okay mum,” Harry whispered, nodding slightly and blushing as she kissed his head.

“Okay darling- I’ll leave you alone now,” she laughed, ruffling his hair.  “We’re really proud of you, though.”

“Thanks,” Harry stammered, smiling.  “Love you.”

“Love you too,” Lily responded, sneaking another bit of bacon onto his plate before she went back up to the staff table.  Ron watched the interaction but said nothing. He wasn’t sure what exactly had happened, but it didn’t surprise him in the least that Harry was taking potions and getting checkups; he looked positively sickly, he was so small.

Harry noticed Ron’s probing look but was grateful that he didn’t say anything as he took a sip of his juice, grimacing slightly.  His mum could make them taste  _ better,  _ but not even Merlin could make them taste  _ good.   _ By the time he’d struggled through his breakfast, they had to hurry up and gather their things as the bell rang so they had time to make it to transfiguration.  They did, indeed, get lost, and luckily James happened to be there to rescue them from Filch, who wouldn’t believe them when they said they didn’t  _ mean  _ to end up on the forbidden third-floor corridor.

“Hello boys,” Harry’s father chuckled, trying to hide his anxiety- he’d been coming to check the protections on this ‘death corridor’ that Dumbledore had made so much of last night, and he’d been not at all happy to find out how easy it had been for  _ his son  _ to inadvertently stumble into it- he and Lils would be having  _ words  _ with the headmaster later.

“Dad!” Harry ran into his arms, nearly shaking, and James ran a hand soothingly along his back as he glared at Filch, who had been cackling about ‘pulling the old chains down.’

“You know perfectly well that you’re allowed to do no such thing,” he told the old squib menacingly.  “And if I catch you speaking to my son like that again there will be hell to pay.” Most of the students were able to take Filch’s blustering for what it was- empty threats- but Harry had grown up in a place where such threats had not only been  _ made  _ but  _ followed through,  _ and he’d made a promise to himself and to Harry that his son would never have to be scared like that again.

“C’mon Prongslet,” he murmured softly.  “I’ll take you two to class.”

He opened the door to the transfiguration classroom and couldn’t help a small smile as he noticed that his son was blushing from head to toe when he realised they were the last ones there; he hated that his boy was so self-conscious after everything that had happened to him, but the way he managed to look so cute while being embarrassed was just too precious not to adore.

“Pardon the tardiness Minnie- these two had a run in with Filch,” he explained to his old teacher, who had to bite back a smile at seeing her old troublemaker awake and back on his feet.

“I suppose it can be forgiven this one time,” she sighed charitably.  “Especially if Filch was involved, that old…” she caught herself, remembering that she was in front of an entire classroom full of first years and had a reputation to uphold.

“Never mind that- come on through, take a seat,” she instructed the two boys.  “And Mr. Potter,” both Harry and his father looked up, but she was looking at James.  “Do try to stay out of trouble while you’re out wandering the halls.”

James just laughed, his hazel eyes lighting up with mirth.  “No promises,” he declared, winking as he shut the door. Minerva just sighed again, put-upon, as she turned to her class.  

“Today we will be turning matchsticks into needles…” she began.

__________

Harry decided that he didn’t much like Professor Quirrell’s class; the man smelled like garlic and gave him a funny feeling down his spine, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.  Nonetheless, he dutifully took notes and put up with the man’s nervous stammer, which sounded different than any other speech impediment he’d ever heard.

The second-to-last class of the first day was potions, and Harry cheerfully scrambled up onto the stool next to Ron and took out his cauldron, which the redhead looked at curiously.

“My mum said this one’ll work better,” he explained, and Ron just nodded- he’d heard that Lily Potter knew what she was doing, so he wasn’t about to argue.

Professor Snape stalked in dramatically, speaking in a low voice about how he could teach them how to ‘bottle fame, brew glory, and even stopper death,’ and Harry turned the volume up on his hearing aids so that he could catch every word, leaning forward in his seat.  For all that he didn’t know how to feel about the man yet as a head of house, he sure knew how to put on a performance, and his quill and Hermione’s behind him were scrabbling madly as they took notes.

“Weasley!” He suddenly turned on Ron while studiously avoiding even looking at Harry, “I am aware that your family has… money problems-” Ron blushed brilliantly, his own far more visible due to his skin tone than Harry’s could  _ ever  _ be, “but I expect you to find a way to procure the supplies for my class  _ as specified on the syllabus!”   _ He looked in disdain at their copper cauldron, and Harry felt anger bubble up on behalf of his friend.

“Actually,” he declared, puffing his small chest out and jumping to Ron’s defense the way he had never been able to come to his own, “this is  _ my  _ cauldron- my mum said it would work better than the pewter ones.”

Snape barely took half a look at Harry before a strange expression came over his face and he turned away, saying no more about their cauldron.  The overly-difficult questions he’d planned to use to embarrass someone in the class (preferably a Weasley or a Gryffindor) faded out of his mind as he turned to the board, waving his wand so that the chalk scribbled the recipe of its own accord.

“Today you will be making a simple cure for boils,” he snarled.  “Do not mess it up.”

Harry was grateful that his mum had bought him all of his own ingredients, as the idea of having to go back into the tiny store cupboard to gather them sent panic clawing up at his chest, even if no one could throw him in and lock the door behind him with this one.  He took a deep, shaky breath as he pulled his kit out of his bag, fingers quickly reaching for all of the bottles they would need, organized alphabetically.

“Do you know the spell to start a fire under the cauldrons yet?” Ron whispered- Snape hadn’t told them.  Harry was about to lean over and respond into his ear (the spell had been in the footnotes of their textbook, but not everyone reads those, so Snape really  _ should  _ have put it up on the board) when Hermione leaned forward.

“It’s  _ ignus,”  _ she announced, and Ron wanted to be irritated at her butting into their conversation but couldn’t find anything except for gratitude that  _ someone,  _ at least, was being helpful.

“Thanks,” he muttered, a tad reluctantly, as he pointed his wand towards the cauldron, getting the fire started on the second try.  Harry poured 200 centilitres of base fluid into the bottom and Ron started helping him measure out the snake fangs to put in the mortar.

“It’s a good thing Nala isn’t here, or she’d be pitching a fit,” Harry muttered, and Ron chuckled a bit.

“A bit of a drama queen, isn’t she?” He asked, and Snape wanted to snap at him for talking, but he knew that if Harry told his mother that the ‘mean potions professor’ had been picking on his friend, any hope of salvaging his friendship with Lily and also possibly of reaching the next day with all his faculties intact would be completely and utterly destroyed, so he kept his mouth shut.

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, “she is.  Hedwig kind of is too, to be honest.  Mum says that dramatic people gravitate towards calmer ones; that’s why she has dad and Padfoot has Uncle Moony.”

“Huh,” Ron mused.  “That’s kind of funny, I guess.  I mean, I wouldn’t say my mum is  _ dramatic,  _ exactly, but she certainly is organized where my dad isn’t.”

“See,” Harry pointed out, “every moon needs a sun… or a star,” he laughed, thinking of Sirius.

“Okay, so what do we do now?” Ron asked, motioning to the potion they’d just added the fangs to.

“Three counterclockwise stirs, wait ten seconds,” Harry instructed, not even having to look at the textbook.  And it was lucky he had his eyes up, because he caught Neville, who was shaking from head to foot, about to make a very  _ grave  _ error.

“Neville,” he called out to the Gryffindor, “heat  _ off  _ before you add the quills!”

“Oh,” Neville muttered, looking at the textbook and then at his potion again, which was slightly off-colour.  “Thanks…”

“No problem,” Harry replied, smiling easily at him.  “And hey, don’t feel bad- it’s a common mistake.” Neville stopped blushing quite so hotly and even managed a small smile back, and up at his desk, Snape sunk further into his sulk- impudent little brat, ruining every chance he had to take out some of his frustrations.

Thanks to Harry’s saving Neville from disaster, there were no ruined cauldrons or explosions that day.  One might  _ think  _ that would make a teacher happy; it did not make Snape happy.  As they meandered to flying class, his sulk was more pronounced than ever, and the children were quite glad to take their cheerful little selves to be loud and happy somewhere else.

_______

Madame Hooch was quite curious to see her new batch of first years; she knew that little Harry Potter was going to be in her class this year, and his parents had come to talk to her about it earlier that day.  James had mentioned that they hadn’t let him on a broom yet; he’d grown up with muggles and his health was a little delicate, so she was told not to expect him to have come in with any prior knowledge, and to please watch to make sure he wasn’t overexerting himself.  James had been a talented flyer in  _ his  _ first year class, but that was after he’d already been flying for years, so she was curious to see how much of the Potter affinity for broomsmanship was purely genetic.  She would be getting another Weasley as well; a Slytherin this time, which in itself was highly curious even if the boy couldn’t manage to get his broom off the ground. Although she highly doubted that- the whole family were accomplished flyers.  Gryffindor had just lost the best seeker they’d ever had in Charlie Weasley, and Fred and George were the most formidable beater team she’d seen in a long time.

Potter  _ did  _ look rather small, she mused, as he stepped onto the field, his normal shyness forgotten as he talked animatedly with Ron, Hermione trailing behind them quoting statistics from  _ Quidditch Through the Ages.   _ He was wearing a green knit cap over his messy hair, no doubt through Lily’s efforts to keep her precious baby’s head warm, and he was currently pulling a bit off wool off of the top of his hearing aid as Ron said something that made him laugh.  It was a sweet picture, and part of the reason Hooch loved teaching outside; students were often their most relaxed on the Hogwarts grounds, and it offered her a unique window into student’s natural demeanors as she set up or taught other classes.

“Good afternoon, class,” she greeted them, and they responded in kind, a disjointed chorus of chipper little voices.  Oh, how she loved the young ones- even if they had absolutely zero skills to start with, their enthusiasm more than made up for it.

“Everyone grab a broom,” she instructed, and they all scrambled for one with the least bent twigs.  Poor little Harry, the shortest of the bunch and unable to elbow his way through as well, got stuck with quite a sorry thing, and she watched as young Ronald offered to trade and Harry shook his head, insisting he’d be fine.

His broom did rise up into his hand immediately, to her satisfaction- he was clearly off to a good start.  His grip was perfect, his hands seeming to know by instinct exactly where on the broom to grab, and he gently helped a nervous Gryffindor (the Longbottom boy, she believed) summon his own into his hand and choke up on it properly.  She set them loose in the air, giving them basic instructions on how to ascend, and she watched as he stuck close to Neville, keeping him from falling right away.

“Ten points to Slytherin,” she told him, “for helping a fellow student.”  He blushed but gave her an endearing smile, and she began to grow more and more excited as she gave them basic instructions and he picked them up immediately, the most natural in the class even over those who  _ had  _ flown before.  Yes, it was clear to her already that this child was a prodigy.  Humming to herself, she gave them the last twenty minutes of class for free play as she descended to watch them- she never had children of her own, but watching her students play filled her with a maternal affection.  They were always so free up in the air, so distant from the cares of the ground. She waited until there were only ten minutes of class and then prepared to call them down.

“Oh no!” Neville suddenly cried before she could, “my remembrall!  Gran  _ just  _ got me that; she’s going to be so disappointed.”

“I’ve got it,” Harry chirruped, diving eagerly after it.  Rolanda Hooch held her breath, unable to do anything but watch as the first year, seemingly unaware of what a dangerous move this could be, urged the school broom faster and faster as it sped closer and closer to the ground, but his fingers closed upon it mere inches away from the dirt as he pulled up and back towards his friends in a turnabout so difficult and spectacular she doubted that Charlie Weasley could have pulled it off.

“Here you go,” he said casually, presenting it to the Longbottom boy as if he  _ hadn’t  _ just pulled a move that would have had any professional recruiter chomping at the bit to sign him on.  She picked her jaw back up from when it had dropped as far as it would go.

“Potter!” she cried, “that was  _ spectacular!   _ I’ve never seen anything like it- I trained your father for  _ years  _ and he was never that good!”

“What?” Harry looked confused.  “What’d I do?” He didn’t seem to realise the sheer brilliance and dexterity required to pull off such a move, his cheeks merely pleasantly heated from the exercise.

Unfortunately, her focus on Potter meant that she  _ hadn’t  _ been watching Neville, who had stumbled the last three feet off of his broom, his wrist bent at an odd angle.

“To the nurse,” she instructed him, as Hermione offered to walk him there and he accepted.  “Potter, you come with  _ me?” _

“Wait,” he interjected, “am I in trouble?”

_ “No,  _ you’re not in trouble, you  _ magnificent  _ child!” she declared, grabbing him by the hand.  “You are the  _ furthest thing  _ from in trouble!  Come along and I’ll explain everything.”

“Oh, okay…” Harry agreed, still looking somewhat disoriented.  “But I also gotta meet my mum to go to my check-up in fifteen minutes…”

“I’m sure she’ll understand if you’re a little late, dear- I’ll let her know myself,” Hooch dismissed the concern absentmindedly, far too focused on what she was sure was about to be the greatest decision of her career.  Potter was  _ born  _ to be a seeker!

Professor Snape, unfortunately, didn’t seem to agree with her.

“You want me to put  _ that  _ little welp on my team?!” he exclaimed, causing Harry to flinch back.  “Based on one lesson-  _ despite  _ the fact that first years aren’t to play quidditch?!”

“I’m telling you Severus; this will be the best decision you’ll ever make,” she prodded him.  “I saw this child catch a remembrall and pull up from a seventy foot dive at nearly a ninety degree angle like it was absolutely  _ nothing!” _

“Oh,” Severus snarled, “so he’s an  _ idiot,  _ too?”  In his complete astonishment at what Hooch was suggesting, he had forgotten himself.  Besides, the little brat had genuinely done something wrong this time- how  _ dare  _ he risk his own safety in such a harebrained scheme.

“Come now, Severus,” Hooch scolded, “it wasn’t like that- I’d turned them loose for free play, and it was clear he didn’t even see it as showing off or doing anything he shouldn’t.  I mean, really, how was  _ he  _ supposed to know it wasn’t a normal thing to do on a broom?- the child was muggle-raised!”

They continued to argue back and forth like that for a while while Harry shrank into the corner, wanting to be just about anywhere else and not having asked for any of this.

______

Portrait gossip traveled  _ fast  _ even when people forget to mention certain important things to people who ought to know, so it was while Neville was telling Madame Pomfrey and Lily how helpful Harry had been in potions class and how he’d stood up for Ron over the cauldrons issue when James burst in.

“LILY!” he yelled, “APPARENTLY HARRY DID SOMETHING  _ AMAZING  _ IN FLYING CLASS AND HOOCH WANTS HIM TO BE THE SEEKER FOR SLYTHERIN BUT SNAPE WON’T LET HIM!  AND I’M MAD ABOUT THAT, BUT AT THE SAME TIME DO YOU THINK  _ WE  _ SHOULD LET HIM?!  IS HE HEALTHY ENOUGH, DO YOU THINK?!  HELP ME LILY; I DON’T KNOW HOW TO HANDLE THESE EMOTIONS!”

“For goodness sake, James,  _ stop  _ yelling; this is a hospital,” Lily chided, hands on her hips as she went over to her husband.  “Now, tell it all again-  _ slowly.” _

“Er, I think I can help,” Neville piped up timidly, as he explained the dive.

“Mother of Merlin!” Lily declared, hand on her chest.  “He could have been  _ killed!”   _

“But he wasn’t,” James reminded her.  “And it’s not like he was  _ trying  _ to do anything dangerous- he wouldn’t have done it if he thought he could get hurt.”

“Well I know  _ that,”  _ Lily huffed, crossing her arms.  “Still, perhaps we ought to have explained broom safety to him first, instead of expecting him to automatically know his own limits…”

“According to the Fat Lady, Snape and Hooch are arguing about it in his office right now,” James informed her.  “And she’s dragged Harry along- we ought to go settle the thing.”

“And what’s our verdict, exactly?” Lily asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, uh… I don’t know that yet, but I imagine having  _ Snivellus  _ alone in a room with our son and a quidditch-obsessed maniac isn’t the best idea no matter  _ what  _ we end up doing…”

“Fair point,” Lily agreed as they hustled along to the dungeons.  “God, I miss the days when  _ you  _ were the only quidditch-obsessed maniac I had to worry about…”

______

Harry had pressed himself so far into the back corner of the wall that he’d nearly become one with the stones as Hooch and Snape got into a louder and louder screaming match that led him to turn off his hearing aids out of the sheer stress of it, and he nearly wept with relief when he saw his parents come in.

“Mum, dad!” he cried, running to them as one hand fumbled to turn the volume back up.  “I didn’t  _ mean  _ to do anything; I swear!  I just caught a little ball in flying class and suddenly Madame Hooch is bringing me here and I don’t even know what they’re fighting about anymore but I honestly didn’t wanna cause trouble; I swear!”

“Shhh, shh baby,” Lily soothed, picking him up and clutching him against her chest, upset at how easy it was for her to support the weight of her eleven-year-old child.  “We know you didn’t mean anything; you didn’t  _ do  _ anything wrong, sweetheart- there’s just a lot going on that you got caught up in.”  She then helped him with the devices in his ears, gently moving his shaking hands aside so she could get them settled properly.

Meanwhile, James had marched right up to the two of them.  “Stop it!” he commanded, his voice no louder than usual but cutting through the screaming easily.  “You’re being ridiculous! If you wanted to talk about something concerning Harry, you should have come to us, not dragged him off like that!”

“I’m sorry, James,” Madame Hooch sighed, looking contrite.  “I suppose I kind of lost myself, and the situation spiraled out of my control.”

“I can  _ see  _ that,” Lily snarled, but her eyes were on Snape as she stepped forward, still holding Harry.  “He’s shaking like a leaf,” she proclaimed, accusatory. “What did you  _ say  _ to him?!”

“He called him an idiot,” Rolanda piped up helpfully.  Lily’s eyes filled with fire, and Severus had the feeling she could have killed him right there.

“You did  _ what?”  _ She somehow managed to roar in a whisper, not wanting to overwhelm her son with anymore yelling but filling the room with her voice nonetheless.

“I- I merely meant that he had taken quite a risk with such a move,” Severus rasped, his tongue feeling like it weighed far more than it should as he tried to form the words.

“But  _ he  _ didn’t know that!” she spat at him.  “And even if he  _ had,  _ there were better, non-emotionally abusive ways to say it!  And what’s this I hear about you giving him trouble over his cauldron?”

“I… I thought it was the Weasley boy’s…”

“You shouldn’t have been talking to  _ any  _ child that way, you greasy bat, especially when you knew that that cauldron would have worked just as well!  I thought I’d made my position clear on this!” Harry, embarrassed by the entire conversation, was burying his face in his mother’s robes.

“I… I… would it help if I made him the seeker?” Severus asked, desperate to make amends, and in the background, Madame Hooch could be seen not-so-discreetly pumping her fist.

“I don’t know,” she huffed.  “We haven’t even asked Harry if he  _ wants  _ to be the seeker, and I hardly think that’s a decision we should force him to make now, under all this pressure…”

“I do!” Harry piped up suddenly, then covered his mouth, as if he hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

“It’s okay sweetheart, you can tell us,” Lily soothed him.  Harry took a deep breath, looking a touch more confident.

“I uh… I really loved flying, and if I  _ could,  _ and it’s okay… well, I’d really like to be on the team…”

“Then we’ll make it happen,” she promised him, turning back to Severus and Rolanda.  “Of course, there’s his health to consider, and I’m not putting my child up there unless there are some safety wards assembled, which of course you’ll talk to Dumbledore about and help Flitwick arrange, Severus.”  It was  _ not  _ a question.

“O-of… of course,” he agreed meekly.

“And there will be none of this working him to the bone.”  Lily continued laying down her terms. “Two hour practices maximum, with a break in the middle, and no letting him go out in bad weather- I expect the health and safety of my son to come before any ridiculous cup,” she informed them sternly.  Hooch readily agreed- she’d seen the kid, and he could easily win the game without  _ any  _ practice.  Severus, on the other hand, looked like it pained him deeply to make so many concessions, especially for a  _ Potter  _ child.  

Lily knew this, and thought it perhaps one of the best punishments she could have come up with- besides her own clear disapproval, of course.  Forcing  _ him  _ to be the one to finagle Albus Dumbledore into putting up more safety practices was an inspired form of retribution as well- trying to get that man to do anything differently from how  _ he _ wanted it was like pulling teeth.  She couldn’t  _ really  _ curse her old friend into oblivion, no matter how much she wanted to, and there was no way in the world even  _ she  _ could ever manage to convince Albus to fire him, but she was finding better ways to torture him; he would have to be faced with her own clear anger every day until he did what she wanted him to do, and anything less than perfect treatment of her son would continue to incur her wrath.  She knew this, and  _ he  _ knew this, and that was exactly how it ought to be.  James looked at his wife in awe- there were some times, he thought, when he could clearly see the Slytherin in her.  That must be where their son got it.

“Come on poppet,” she murmured softly to her son.  “It’s time for your checkup. And James,” she added, turning to her husband.  “You can come along too- we’ve got in those lollies that you like so much.”

Both of her boys brightened at the prospect of the sweet, and she let out a musical peal of laughter as her little family walked towards the hospital wing- like father, like son.


	7. Chapter 6

Harry _loved_ Hogwarts; he loved going to a school where nobody beat him up all the time, he loved that the teachers didn’t treat him like he was dumb or a delinquent, he loved having friends to go everywhere with, and most of all, he loved having parents waiting to ask him how his day was and give him hugs and kisses at the end of the day.  The only thing he didn’t like was the way everyone stared at him, as if _he’d_ somehow been the one to make Voldemort disappear instead of the whole thing being a giant fluke (which was what _he_ believed).  But it was a far cry from the magnitude of the sorts of trials he’d faced at Privet Drive, so he dealt with it cheerfully, and his parents glared at anyone who stared too hard at him (unless it was a younger student, in which case they merely gave them a pointed look).

He was _very_ excited for Halloween, an excitement that was endearing to his parents and teachers alike, even if it made James and Lily sad to think that he’d never been allowed to show this sort of excitement before, or indeed to have anything to be excited about.  He’d told them, almost in a distracted tone as they helped him decide on a costume to wear (they’d manage to convince the other teachers to start the muggle tradition and allow everyone to wear costumes in class), how he’d always been forced to clean the house from top to bottom for the trick-or-treaters before being locked in his cupboard while Vernon took Dudley out and Petunia stayed to hand out candy.  They knew of course that it wasn’t the worst thing to happen to him there (and that alone was a sad fact), but they were still quite bothered by the story, although they were careful to keep that fact hidden for Harry’s sake.

Their son had eventually decided that he wanted to be a dragon, so Lily painstakingly created him a handmade costume (without telling him just how much work she was putting into it, so he wouldn’t feel bad).  The suit was as green as his eyes, and his head would stick out of the mouth of the dragon, and there would be big, claw-shaped slippers for the feet and wings coming out of the back of it. Harry had lit up like a Christmas tree when she’d shown him the finished costume, and he was bouncing up and down with excitement the morning of, when he came to their quarters so his mum could zip it on over his shirt and trousers.

“And look,” she told him, booping his nose.  “The wings move.” They did indeed flap when Harry walked, his excitement making them flutter eagerly as he nearly skipped towards the door.

“Thank you so much, mum!” he squealed as he hugged her tightly, and she leaned down to kiss the top of his head.

“Of course, darling,” she reminded him.  “Anything for my little boy.”

“Always and forever,” James added, ruffling his hair.  “Now, go have fun today, and you’ll have to tell us later if you learn any cool, Halloween-themed spells.”

There were a great _many_ Halloween-themed lessons that day, even from Professor Snape, who was browbeaten by Lily into teaching all of the first years to brew a simple potion that would make anything dipped into it glow in the dark for a week, which turned out to be rather unfortunate for Seamus Finnigan's dorm-mates, as the boy somehow got himself completely _covered_ in the stuff, and it looked like it took Snape a great deal of effort not to take a hundred points and give the Gryffindor detention for the rest of forever.  Neville’s potion, on the other hand, was perfect- he was intimately familiar with the plant they were using as the main ingredient, as it was one he grew in his garden at home, so he knew _exactly_ how it should be treated in the process.

Professor Flitwick taught them a neat little charm that helped an apple spin uniformly as they levitated it into cauldrons full of bubbling caramel, coating it perfectly and evenly, and Professor McGonagall offered ten points to the house of whichever student could turn their safety pin into the most creative Halloween decoration.  Harry won when he transfigured his into a delicate metal spider web, a feat of magic that _looked_ very difficult but really just involved turning the pin into a sharper, thinner version of itself before multiplying and layering it into the shape he wanted.  Quirrell basically gave them a free period as he filled his classroom with even _more_ garlic, supposedly to ward off any vampires who might come looking for him.  Ron shared an eye roll with Hermione while Harry braided some of the extra bulbs into intricate garlic ropes, like the kind people used to make to hang in their cellars.

The feast was supposed to be quite an event, and Ron (dressed as a Chudley Cannons quidditch player) helped Hermione lace into her ‘stereotypical witch’ costume rather distractedly as he thought about all the food they were about to enjoy.

“What’s the whole point of your costume again?” he asked the black girl as she stuck a fake wart to her chin and grabbed her broomstick, a raggedy-looking thing that not even the bravest of flyers would have dared to take into the sky with them.

“It’s called _irony,_ Ronald,” she reminded him primly, sticking on a fake lumpy nose and grabbing her witch’s hat (the same one they brought for school, funnily enough).  “You know, because I’m an _actual_ witch dressed like the muggle _idea_ of a witch?”

“I like it,” Harry piped up, his face smiling brightly from between the teeth of his dragon head.  “Hey Ron, can you fix my hearing aid?” he asked the boy, finally a little more comfortable requesting help.  “I’ve already put my paws back on.” He held up his hands, which were encased in the special, clawed gloves Lily had made him that he’d waited to put on until after classes were over.

“Of course, mate,” Ron said easily, smiling at him as he fixed the handle.  “These things sure do slip around a lot, huh?”

“Mum says it’s because my ears are so small,” Harry informed him.  “But she doesn’t want to charm them to size down because it might interfere with the spell keeping the magical input out of them, and this was already the smallest size they had…” he looked rather put out by the fact.

“Helloooo!” Pansy chirruped just as Ron turned the volume up on the devices, causing Harry to jump back in surprise.  She was dressed as some sort of anti-fairy, with a dark purple knee-length dress and black body glitter and wings made up of sharp angles with triangular points, and her shoulder-length hair was topped with a silver crown branching up in gothic spikes.  “Still wanted to do the witch thing, huh Mione?” she sighed, sounding disappointed- she’d wanted the girl to be her dark lady-in-waiting.

“I’m not really a fan of fairies,” Hermione informed her.  “Like, fine Tinkerbell, nobody believes in you- have you ever tried believing in _yourself?!”_

Pansy looked blankly at her.  “I have absolutely _no_ idea what you’re talking about,” she declared, shaking her head mildly.  “Anyway, I think we’re just waiting on Daphne and Millie now.”

One of the older Gryffindors had sneeringly called Daphne the ‘Slytherin ice queen’ last week, so she came out in a blue set of dress robes and with an intricately-charmed crystal crown on her head matching the frosty lip gloss she was wearing, and Millie had leather trousers and a bow slung over her shoulder.

“I’m Robin Hood,” she announced, as if daring anyone to remind her that the one in the books had been a man.  Nobody did; overthrowing capitalism is a gender-neutral business, after all.

“To the feast!” Theo announced, coming out dressed like an old-fashioned vampire, with a long cape thrown over his shoulders and his hair slicked back.  Draco came out somewhat self-consciously; his father refused to send him a costume, saying the tradition was ‘too muggle’ and as his mother was in France for the week, his complaints wouldn’t have even reached her by post in time for her to remind her husband who was in charge of the house.

“Here Malfoy,” Ron said, grabbing a pair of costume ears and drawing some whiskers on the blonde’s face with a quill.  “You’re a cat.”

Draco sneered at him a bit for effect but didn’t try to stop him.  “Bit of a half-hearted effort, Weasel,” he sighed, and Ron rolled his eyes- he just _had_ to be like this.

“I could try to charm a tail onto you, if you’d like,” he offered, raising an eyebrow, and Draco scrambled back.

“No, that’s alright!” he stammered, losing his cool facade for a moment.  “This is… fine, Weasel… thank you.” He added the last bit rather reluctantly, and Ron just let out a long, exasperated sigh.

“S’no problem, you poncy git,” he quipped, unable to stop the smallest of smiles from springing to his face as he grabbed Harry’s hand and they all headed towards the feast.

Harry’s eyes widened in awe, and Hermione had to stop Pansy from jumping forward to squeeze him in a hug-tackle as she cooed at the expression on his face.  He didn’t even notice any of this, however, his eyes too focused on the dancing skeletons and the bats swooping from the ceiling.

“Professor Snape, are you alright?” Ron asked one of them, only to jump as the man himself snuck up behind him.

“Something _funny,_ Weasley?” he asked, raising an eyebrow but unable to do anything else, as Lily was watching him from the head table (dressed as an elf from Lord of the Rings).  James wore a pair of fake antlers on his head, one arm swung around Lily.

“I am your noble forest steed,” he told his wife, and she snorted as she smacked him on the arm.

“You’re a woodland _pest,_ is what you are,” she responded, but she was smiling as she kissed him chastely on the lips.  Snape was watching jealously until Minerva came up to him, tapping his shoulder.

“Well,” she told her colleague, “I _must_ congratulate you on your rather accurate and terrifying vampire costume- it’s even better than Mr. Nott’s, even.”

“Ha ha,” he sneered, looking her over condescendingly.  “What are you supposed to be, anyway?”

“Why, isn’t it obvious?” she asked, faux-insulted as she motioned to her black lycra body suit with a tail coming out the back and the ears settled primly atop her usual neat bun.  “I’m Catwoman!”

“Nicely _done,_ Minnie McG!” Sirius suddenly exclaimed, having brought himself and his boyfriend out of their cozy village cottage for the night.  Remus didn’t look quite as happy about it, crossing his arms grumpily from his comically-terrible wolf costume.

“Well well well,” their old head of house snorted, catching sight of the black wooly suit the Lord Black was wearing.  “A black sheep- I must congratulate you on your play on words, you old dog.”

Food soon appeared on all the tables as everyone settled down to eat, but Harry had barely buttered his potato before a funny look came over Ron’s face.

“I really gotta go to the bathroom,” he mumbled, and Hermione rolled her eyes at him.

“This is why I tell you to pee _before_ we go places,” she sighed, but got up to go with him anyway.  Harry did as well, but not before Ron forced a pumpkin pasty into his hands for the road.

“How do dragons _eat?”_ he asked, contorting himself as he tried to fit his arm far enough down the dragon head to get his snack into his own mouth.

“They don’t bother with their hands, and their mouths aren’t halfway down their throats,” Hermione chuckled as they reached the boys bathroom and waited outside for their friend to empty his bladder.  They were unaware of the current hubbub in the hall as Quirrell came in screaming about a troll in the dungeons and Snape instructed his Slytherins to follow the Hufflepuffs as James and Lily shared panicked looks and went running to find their baby with Remus and Sirius.  

“Where did everybody go?” Harry asked his two friends as they got back to the empty hall.  

“There is a troll on the loose,” Dumbledore said, seeming to appear out of nowhere as the three jumped.  “Please follow the other Slytherins.”

“Okay, thank you,” Harry told him, as the three of them went towards the Slytherin common room, not knowing _where_ the troll was or that their fellow housemates had gone somewhere else.

They were passing the girl’s bathroom on the first floor when a strong, terrible smell hit their noses, and Harry gagged as he willed his pumpkin pasty to stay down.

“I think…” Ron muttered, his face having gone white, “I think that we’ve found the troll…”

“Memph!” the troll grumbled, swinging his club around wildly, and they ducked as it missed Hermione’s fake nose by centimeters.

“I think there’s something bothering him!” the girl exclaimed as Ron grabbed Harry and dodged the creature again.

“Yeah,” Ron agreed.  “Us!”

“No,” Hermione clarified, _“Look!”_

Indeed there was the faint buzz of a hex floating around the creature’s ears, and Harry gasped as he realised that it must have been placed there on purpose to drive the creature into a frenzy.

“The buzzing noise is what’s bothering it!” Hermione declared.  “I read about this- trolls hate flies, so making one feel like there’s one nearby is the surest way to get it worked up!”

“Can you reverse it?” Ron called as he and Harry narrowly missed being squashed by one of the troll’s large feet.

“I… I _think_ so…” the girl stammered, a little uncertainly.  “If I can just pronounce the incantation properly…”

“Not to rush you or anything, Mia, but we are _very_ small, and that thing’s club is _very_ large,” Ron gulped as the troll’s club swung above them.  He ducked, his body over Harry’s as a stone was knocked loose from the wall, but the smaller boy pushed his best friend out of the way of the falling debris as he himself was just a _little_ to slow, and his leg crumpled under him as the nearly boulder-sized chunk of rock hit him in the hip.

“HURRY!” Ron screamed at Hermione in terror, running over to pick Harry up and scold him for not letting Ron keep hold of him.

“It would have hit you,” Harry mumbled, his teeth grit against the pain.

“Better than it hitting _you,”_ his best friend argued as Hermione waved her wand and yelled something, the troll blessedly calming down as the buzzing noise around its face finally stopped.  Hermione managed to get it pointed in the direction of the nearest exit, and the mountain troll ambled away placidly, dragging its club behind it and grunting.

“What on _earth?!”_ Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape came running up, taking in the damaged wall and the injured boy.

“Why didn’t you follow the directions you were given?” Snape forced himself to ask calmly, pinching the bridge of his nose to keep from exploding.

“We were going to the common rooms like Professor Dumbledore told us to,” Hermione explained, as Professor McGonagall’s eyes lit up angrily.

“He told you to go _where?”_ she asked, her voice dangerously tight, and Harry flinched back, trying not to yelp as the movement aggravated his injured hip.

“He told us to follow the other Slytherins,” Hermione clarified, “so we headed towards the dungeons.”

“The troll was _in_ the dungeons, which is why everyone was instructed to follow the Hufflepuffs,” Snape grit, just managing to keep from exploding, although this time it wasn’t directed towards the children.  “That old _fool!”_

“Harry!” James and Lily finally managed to locate their son, taking in the scene around them.  “You’re hurt! What happened?”

 _“Dumbledore_ told them to follow the other Slytherins,” Severus snarled, and for the first time in ten years, Lily looked at him with an anger directed at someone else.

“That’s _all_ he told them?” she asked tightly, her voice a storm barely held back.

“Indeed,” Snape agreed, and James’ knuckles were nearly white from how hard he was clenching his fists.

“Once we get Harry settled, shall we all set aside our differences for a moment and go ki- er… _handle_ the old man?” he asked his old rival, who nodded shortly.

“I do believe that’s the first good idea you’ve ever had,” he muttered as Lily picked Harry gently up from Ron’s lap.

“Oh Bambi…” she gasped softly.  “I think your hip is broken…”

“Can’t be,” Harry grunted.  “That only happens to old people.”

“It can happen to anyone, pet,” she corrected as she cradled him carefully to her chest.  “Come on- we need to get this taken care of as soon as possible.”

Their son did indeed have a fairly serious fracture in his hip bone, and the procedure to correct it was fairly complex, the magical equivalent of a surgery to go in and reset it.  James paced anxiously as his wife stood behind the screen with Poppy, handing her mentor anything she needed and forcing herself not to cry out fearfully whenever the healer went in for a delicate maneuver.

It was forty-five minutes later when they emerged, letting everyone know the procedure had gone well.

“He’ll need to stay off of it for a few weeks,” Poppy instructed Lily and James.  “I’ve bandaged the area carefully, but he should avoid walking and only sit on soft surfaces for a while.

“We’ll take him to our quarters until he recovers,” Harry’s mother declared.

“Can I still go to classes?” Harry asked plaintively, trying to pull himself up to a sitting position as Poppy gave him a stern look and pushed him carefully back down.

“You’ll have to take a few days off,” she told her (not-so-secret) favourite patient.  “But after that you can go if you keep the injury resting on a cushion with some ice and your parents carry you there and back.”

“Oh…” Harry mumbled- he couldn’t imagine being that much of a burden for them…

“Hey Prongslet, we don’t mind,” James said firmly, gently lifting Harry’s chin so that his son was looking into his eyes.  “You’re our son, and we’ll do anything you need us to. Besides, maybe this can make up for all the times we never got to cart you around when you were younger, okay?”  Their little boy smiled shyly before eventually nodding, and James kissed his forehead affectionately.

“There’s a good lad,” he praised, tucking the blankets in around him as Lily sat on the other side of the bed.  “Now, why don’t you try to get some rest? Your mother can sing to you, if you’d like…”

“Yes please,” Harry whispered, as Lily ran a hand softly through his hair and starting humming _Penny Lane_ by The Beatles.  Ron, seeing that Pomfrey was about to kick him and Hermione out, grabbed his stomach and groaned.

“Er, I don’t feel so good…” he declared, his acting enthusiastic but not at all convincing.  “I think I need to stay the night.”

“I believe I’ve caught it as well,” Hermione declared, clutching her stomach and channeling the feeling she got when she had period cramps, her own performance good enough that Poppy would have actually been worried if she didn’t know what they were doing.

“Oh, fine…” she conceded with a sigh.  “You can stay with him- but you’re all going _right_ to sleep,” she added sternly, as the two nodded obediently.

“Yes ma’am,” they nodded, scuffling quietly over the bed next to Harry’s before giving up and deciding they would share it.

“I guess I’ll be going now, since they’re all in your capable hands…” Snape muttered eventually, feeling unusually awkward.

“Alright, bye then,” Lily broke off her song for just a minute to say, and James nodded at him cordially.

“I’m still planning to take you up on that offer,” he told the other man, and Severus found himself feeling far less urge to sneer at him than usual.

“Very well,” he agreed, resisting the urge to wring his hands nervously, unsure how to handle such an unprecedented situation.  “The three of us will go yell at my boss together, then…”

“He’ll be damn sure that _I’m_ the boss when we’re done with him,” Lily added in an angry whisper, Harry having already dropped off into slumber.

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Severus chuckled, the smallest of smiles coming to his face.  With a sigh of resignation, Lily returned it.

“Alright then,” she whispered, “goodnight Severus.”

“Goodnight Lily,” he replied.  Then, somewhat hesitant, “goodnight... James…”

“Goodnight,” the Lord Potter replied, before swearing.

“What?” Ron asked, startling out of his half-awake stupor.

“We’ve forgotten about Pads and Moony,” James exclaimed in a whisper, still trying not to wake his son.  “They’re still out searching the castle.”

Severus gave a tremendous, put-upon sigh, his face forming a very constipated expression.

“I will go search for them,” he offered, even though it was taking everything he had not to just turn tail and go to bed.  “And I won’t even hex them once they’re found,” he added in response to Lily’s stern look, and her eyes softened just a bit.

“Thank you Severus,” she murmured, her focus still mainly on Harry as she gently removed his glasses and hearing aids.  Snape just nodded his acquiescence before turning and walking out the door, but once he was out of earshot, a low whisper slipped past his lips.

“Always, my old friend,” he sighed softly, a nostalgic smile playing on his lips.  “Always.”


End file.
